By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

THE cash-strapped government will explore the possibility of recovering from the U.S. Social Security program the contributions of thousands of foreigners that have worked here over the years.
Speaker Oscar M. Babauta, Covenant-Saipan, said the CNMI will ask the federal government to consider returning to the commonwealth the Social Security contributions of migrant workers, particularly those of Chinese garment workers.
“We want to explore the possibility of getting back the contributions of Chinese garment workers to Social Security,” the speaker told Variety in an interview on Friday.
“They will not be able to use it so we think the (local) government could make use of it,” he added.
Each documented foreign worker in the Northern Marianas is issued an SS number.
With the exception of workers from the Philippines and South Korea whose governments have separate agreements with the U.S. to exempt their citizens from contributing to the Social Security Administration if they work on U.S. soil, foreign workers in the Northern Marianas have 7.65 percent of their wages deducted as SS contributions under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, also known as FICA, every pay period, according to the agency’s local office.
From the more than 15,000 Chinese garment workers who are mostly paid the CNMI’s decade-old minimum wage of $3.05 an hour, the U.S. collects more than $500,000 for their SS or FICA taxes.
But although foreign worker contributions go directly to the U.S. government’s retirement system, the workers do not get them back unless they contribute for at least 10 years.
In 2004, the federal government stepped up the requirements for non-citizens to qualify for SS benefits, further reducing the chances that CNMI migrant workers will ever get their contributions back.
According to the U.S. 2000 Census, the CNMI was home to more than 38,000 migrant workers, mostly from the Philippines and China.
This figure has dropped to about 27,000 this year as businesses fold up one after another.
Babauta said many migrant workers in the Northern Marianas, particularly the Chinese, go back to their home country after working for many years.
“We’re talking about millions of dollars here,” he said.
Last week, Gov. Benigno R. Fitial asked the Legislature to revise the current fiscal year’s $193.5 million budget to $163.5 million.
The government’s projected revenue this fiscal year is likely to drop by 16 percent due to the closure of more garment factories and the continued decline in the tourism industry.