This is crucial to the local economy, or what’s left of it after years and years of incompetence and mismanagement on Capital Hill. A stable private sector, moreover, is key to the continued employment of most of the CNMI government employees.
But the CW rule is for the transition period only and it ends three years from now. So what happens after 2014? I expect politicians to continue following the path of least resistance, which means an extension of the transition period. The more crucial question, however, is this: How many nonresidents — and residents — will remain on island in the next few years?
The answer depends on whether the CNMI can bring in new businesses and more tourists — on whether, in short, the economy improves. But companies are shutting down, investors are leaving the islands and tourists are going somewhere else. The governor in 2005 promised “Better Times” and in 2009 vowed to “Let it Be.” Neither came to pass. Indeed, this is the most disastrous administration in CNMI history, but the governor will be in office until Jan. 2015 and his “solution” is…a Saipan casino. His allies at the legislative building, for their part, want to increase taxes and impose more fees. People and businesses are bleeding so the Legislature’s “remedy” is…to require them to donate blood.
Happily for them, locals are U.S. citizens and a lot are voting, as Lenin would put it, with their feet. They’re leaving for Guam or the states. Those who have the most to lose under U.S. immigration law are nonresidents who have, since the 1980’s, longed for a “federal takeover,” believing that it would grant them U.S. citizenship or green cards. But without an employer, they must now return to their home countries where one of the best things that can happen to anyone is to land a job abroad.
Their advocates continue to lobby the U.S. Congress to “do the right thing,” but they, too, concede, more or less, that politics will determine the fate of long-term nonresidents. The advocates, bless their hearts, want this to be a moral issue but it is political and it will be decided by politicians making political calculations.
Two years ago, as the administration was about to announce the issuance of umbrella permits, someone asked a local official: Why won’t the governor support improved status for nonresidents? (I heard a similar question many years ago, when a fellow reporter asked the then-governor, “Why do you have to make deals with lawmakers? Why can’t they pass your proposal based on its merits?” It’s like hearing someone ask, Why won’t it rain oil or dollars?)
The official, good sport that he was, replied: Because if a local politician proposed improved status for foreigners he would never win a local election.
In other words, if there is voter support, politicians will be all over each other in endorsing it. This explains why Congressman Kilili’s H.R. 1466 is backed by a lot of local lawmakers. As legislators they’re about as useful as solar-powered flashlights, but as politicians, they sure know how to win elections. That they are backing H.R. 1466 indicates an awareness of the changing demographics in the voting population.
In the next three or four years, there will be hundreds of new CNMI voters and among them are children of nonresidents.
One of our online commentators asks, “Does anyone really think they would be in better shape under the old CNMI system?”
It’s a rhetorical question, but here’s how most nonresidents now view federalization: It doesn’t improve their status; it applies rules that “work” in a first world country to an island with a third world economy; it may end their stay in the CNMI; and it restricts their ability to travel — they have to get a visa from the U.S. Embassy in their country before they can return to the islands, which means getting an appointment, paying a fee ($150, they say) and planning your trip, emergency or otherwise, around your appointment date in the capital city. The lucky few with a B visa also have to get a CW visa from the U.S. Embassy of their home countries. If they plan to visit the states or even Guam they have to return to their home country and get a CW visa before they can return to the CNMI.
So to answer our online commentator, yes, a lot of nonresidents now long for the “good old days” of local immigration control.
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