THE Department of Labor and Immigration has developed a system that could monitor undocumented non-resident workers.
DOLI Secretary Joaquin A. Teorio said the department has installed a border management system to monitor who among the workers left the island or who stayed without authorization.
“We do have a mechanism now. We’ve installed a computerized system that scans passports. It would reveal who left and who has remained in the island,” Tenorio said.
Previously, he said, the department was “clueless” regarding the movement of workers.
“We couldn’t tell. There was no way to know how many unregistered workers we have here,” he said.
In the meantime, he said, the government, through legislation, intends to give all overstaying workers the chance to show up and become legal workers.
Tenorio said illegal aliens should not hide from the authorities because there are available legal jobs.
A pending House bill would offer limited immunity to overstaying foreign workers.
Earlier estimates showed that there were about 5,000 undocumented non-resident workers in the CNMI.
About half of them had come forward under the first limited immunity act, Public Law 11-33, some two years back.
But DOLI said the CNMI is still faced with “a chronic problem of overstaying non-resident workers.”
