PART 2: A Call to Invest in Our People, Not Extend Cheap Labor
THE CNMI is a U.S. Commonwealth, and that fact should shape this entire discussion. Our workforce system must align with United States law, and our economy cannot continue to rely on a foreign labor program designed to be temporary rather than permanent. Extending CW visas once again sends the wrong signal; it rewards years of poor planning while disadvantaging the U.S. citizens the system was meant to protect and support.
The CW program was meant to be temporary, giving employers time to transition to a U.S.-citizen workforce. More than 16 years later, after over 15,000 CNMI graduates, employers have had enough time to recruit, train, and retain local workers, yet CW dependence continues. This sends the wrong message to CNMI youth, veterans, Reservists, and U.S.-educated graduates who are told they are the future but still struggle to find stable, well-paying jobs at home. What is often called a labor shortage is frequently a wage, recruitment, and planning problem, not a true lack of available U.S. workers. The answer should not be endless CW extensions, but an orderly legal immigration approach that protects job opportunities and wage growth for U.S. citizens. A permanently “temporary” low-wage workforce is neither fair nor sustainable for a U.S. Commonwealth. Responsible employers should follow the example of businesses like Joeten Enterprises, which invested in recruiting, training, and retaining a citizen workforce rather than relying on repeated exemptions.
We are also losing something money cannot replace: our indigenous arts and cultural practitioners. As organizers of major community events such as the Flame Tree Arts Festival, Taste of the Marianas, Liberation celebrations, and others, we were deeply alarmed when we began recruiting dancers, bands, and entertainers for this year’s events and found that nearly half of our indigenous dance groups, musicians, and local performers have left the CNMI. Many have left the islands because there are simply not enough jobs and economic opportunities for U.S. citizens in their own homeland. Our indigenous practitioners need jobs to feed their families, pay rent, cover utilities, and build a stable future. Art is a labor of love. But love alone does not pay the bills. When local people are pushed out of the workforce, the loss is not only economic, but also cultural. Continued reliance on CW labor is now cutting directly into the cultural backbone of our community, weakening our performers, our traditions, and the ability of the next generation of Chamorro and Carolinian artists to survive, grow, and carry forward who we are.
We have even lost many of our “beach boys,” local indigenous young men who are U.S. citizens and once worked along our shorelines in tourism, water recreation, visitor services, and other entry-level jobs that gave them a start in the private sector. These positions used to be the first rung on the ladder for local youth, a way to earn an honest income, help support their families, gain confidence, and build work experience that could lead to larger opportunities in hospitality, small business, marine services, and entrepreneurship. But increasing competition from CW labor in these same sectors has pushed many of our own young men out of jobs that should have helped launch their future.
When U.S. citizens in their own homeland cannot access even the most basic entry-level opportunities, they do not just lose a paycheck; they lose a pathway. Many have become discouraged and leave home in search of work elsewhere, taking with them their energy, talent, and potential. The CNMI then loses more than workers; it loses future supervisors, managers, boat operators, tour guides, business owners, and community leaders. This is especially painful because these were jobs that once matched the skills, culture, and natural connection our local young men have to the ocean and to welcoming visitors. Allowing continued CW competition to displace them from these roles weakens our workforce pipeline, harms families, and drains away the very people who should be building the next generation of the CNMI economy.
Extending CW visas has real consequences. It discourages our youth. It drives U.S. citizen families to leave. It depresses wages across industries and keeps us in a low-pay, high-turnover cycle that undermines long-term economic stability. A sustainable business model does not depend on keeping wages low forever; it depends on productivity, training, and retaining skilled workers. If a business cannot survive while complying with U.S. labor laws, paying fair wages, and making a genuine effort to recruit U.S. citizens, then we must question whether that model is truly sustainable or merely dependent on a loophole. The CNMI should not mortgage its citizens’ future to protect employers unwilling to follow U.S. laws.
What the CNMI needs now is real investment in its people: paid internships, skilled trades programs, bookkeeping and accounting pathways, on-the-job training, and stronger partnerships with our schools and Northern Marianas College. We should require employers to post jobs publicly, document their recruitment efforts, and be held accountable when they claim there are “no available workers” without showing they made a serious attempt to hire locally.
We should raise wages in a steady, predictable way by increasing the CNMI minimum wage by $1.00 per hour every year through December 31, 2029. This gives employers time to adjust while showing workers that the CNMI values labor and career growth. Better wages, along with training and real enforcement of recruitment, will help attract and keep U.S. citizens in the workforce.
It is time to stop treating CW extensions as the default solution. More than 16 years have passed. Our U.S. citizen workforce is here. Our graduates are here. The law is clear: the CW program was created as a temporary bridge, not a permanent source of jobs for foreign workers. Its purpose was to give employers time to recruit, train, and hire U.S. citizens. Yet the CNMI continues to draw criticism in Washington, D.C., because some employers continue to ignore both the requirements and the intent of U.S. law, placing dependence on low-cost labor above compliance with U.S. law and the future of our people.
Rejecting another CW extension would align the CNMI with President Trump’s stated focus on American workers, reaffirm the spirit of the CNMI–U.S. Covenant as it marks its 50th anniversary on March 24, 2026, and fit the broader national lead-up to the United States’ 250th birthday on July 4, 2026. This is the right time to reverse the brain drain and make it clear that:
U.S. citizens should not be last in line for jobs in a U.S. Commonwealth.
Rejecting CW extensions would help build a stronger local workforce, improve service quality, and strengthen the CNMI’s future. When good-paying jobs are available at home, more young people will return, stay, and bring back the skills and leadership our islands need.
What we need now is leadership that puts U.S. citizens first and builds an economy that rewards commitment to the CNMI, not dependence on cheap labor.
Respectfully,
GARY SWORD
Papago, Saipan
