Rep. Tina Sablan, Ind.-Saipan, said she wrote to Labor early this month and what the department sent her was a “non-reply” that only “raises more questions.”
Labor officials, she said, “told me that they do not track the number of people present in the CNMI, or even the number of active permits. They have repeatedly said they only count permit transactions, not people. They have also said that Labor does not have the manpower or the financial resources to track the numbers of people, despite the fact that they apparently have no trouble tracking transactions, and also despite the significant increases in fees. Now they are trying to claim that they are not even required by CNMI law to report on the actual numbers of foreign workers (or any other types of permit-holders, for that matter) and to shift attention and the burden of responsibility to the U.S. Census Bureau and to our U.S. delegate” in Congress.
Sablan said this is yet another sign that “yeah, absolutely we cannot monitor our borders effectively — we don’t even know how many people are here; that’s pretty basic.”
She wants to know “how Labor was able to establish the total number of alien workers present in the CNMI when U.S. Public Law 110-229 [the federalization law] was signed last year. How did officials establish the cap on the number of foreign workers, which was required by that federal law? How are they now able to ensure that the CNMI does not exceed that cap? And how were they able to prepare their 2007 Annual Report, which actually does appear to document the numbers of people in each of the different permit categories in 2007?”
The Fitial administration estimates that the CNMI still has 16,000 guest workers.
Sablan said she was told that the Labor Information Data System, or LIDS, was transferred from the Division of Immigration’s control to the Department of Labor a few months ago.
“Could that change have anything to do with this sudden inability to provide basic data on the number of people holding permits in the commonwealth?” she asked.
“Either we are not keeping the data at all, or the data have been inaccurate all this time, or the Department of Labor is simply withholding the data. The bottom-line is this: our lack of basic data and Labor’s continuing evasiveness are cause for serious concern.”
