We are delighted to finally have representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. We also need assistance for our crisis in governance and cleaning the mess left by a generation of textile industry control of our homeland.
It took a landslide Democratic congressional victory in 2006 to address and end the story of shame in the Northern Marianas Islands, promulgated by garment industry greed. The labor abuses, corruption, and bribery of the U.S. Congress are hopefully behind us now and a new era for the Northern Marianas can begin. We would like to offer special thanks and appreciation to Rep. George Miller, Congresswoman Donna Christensen, Rep. Nick Rahall, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, Sen. Lisa Murkowski and others for their tireless efforts toward decency and justice here.
The residents of the Marianas are some of the friendliest and most hospitable people you will ever meet. It was that friendly nature, trust, and lack of experience in business that enabled the foreign owned textile industry to control our government. Garment revenues fueled a plastic economy in the NMI, which afforded locals a socialized allotment system with a job title. The garment industry contributed 100 million plus per year payments to the CNMI government to guarantee an unlimited supply of cheap unrepresented foreign labor in the CNMI. Our nonproductive government positions are nothing but fraud. Politicians will not admit this because CNMI employees are their voter base. The last factory closed in January of 2009 and the fuel driving this economic plan has ended. Our disproportionately small middle class of government workers is unfunded and unsustainable. We must force the private sector to employee local citizens and continue to escalate our minimum wage.
We had just over nine thousand voters in our last election. Many voters no longer live here. For our small population we have unjustifiable costs for representation. We have senators with a half million dollars in yearly discretionary spending accounts, we have a score of House members receiving between 150k and 400k, we have multiple mayors that can appoint 80 friends and relatives to bogus jobs and our mayors have unimaginable budgets, and we have multiple paid municipal councils. This is also fraud. One city manager could replace them all. One ethical representative here has proposed a part-time or unpaid legislature, but we will never have a majority of our Legislature show that level of integrity. We need immediate help in management and accountability here.
The textile industry did not invest their enormous profits back into our infrastructure and our dilapidated systems are inadequate, crumbling, and a disgrace. Our administration is scrambling to hire more employees because this is an election year, while kids in our homestead areas do not have potable water. Bottled water here can cost more than gasoline and many go without in this terrible situation. If you need evidence of this, walk around our homestead areas and ask kids if they have one dollar and you will have the answer of our economic situation.
The consensus here is that U.S. immigration will not be equipped to deport hundreds of aliens operating cheap businesses here. The broken CNMI immigration system could not. Our labor abuses and nonpayment issues in the post garment era come from so many cheap businesses and illegal foreign operators infesting the CNMI. If the U.S. can do one thing to ensure a successful future for local children, it is getting rid of the remnants of the textile industry. We must strictly enforce U.S. investor visa laws.
HAMNI and the Saipan Chamber of Commerce want visa waivers with China and Russia and to continue to block the minimum wage increase while keeping our guest workers restricted. Many residents support the visa waiver but many locals want the Chinese influence wiped away from the CNMI. I think we should require visas from China because they require them of us and they have consulates available in all seven cities that send us tourists. I support a Russian visa waiver because visas from Russia will restrict tourism here and the emerging Russian market holds vast opportunity to the residents here.
A final concern still unanswered and causing much uncertainty is a key issue that initiated federal legislation, the reason we are here today, and that is what to do with legal contract guest workers. This administration and many foreign owned businesses don’t want them to leave, don’t want their wages to increase, don’t want them to have the right to change employers, and they still want to retain the status quo of servitude. Some want older CGWs deported because they are owed at least 6 million dollars in judgments for non-payment and to replace them with a younger class of guest worker. This is further complicated by the well being of thousands of U.S. citizen children who have resided here their entire lives. The only logical answer is to improve the status of legal workers here with an unobstructed path to U.S. citizenship.
My ancestors and many others boarded crowded ships and journeyed to America. Each had a different story to tell. The central theme may have been similar though, as each had hope for a new and better life for them and their family.
Guest workers here have exhibited unimaginable patience and have a claim to America that no other immigrants before them can boast. They can be proud that they have served their time. They have worked, labored, and toiled to build a part of America. America is a country of immigrants. No immigrants before them were brought to U.S. soil with promises of work in America, and now, in many cases 20 years after their arrival, they still do not have working status in America. They do not have the freedom to change employers. They do not have the freedom to travel or move. They do not have the right to bring their family, including spouses and children to live beside them. They are a separate class of immigrant. They did not illegally cross the border into America. They are officially veterans of the Northern Mariana Islands, and whether they are Filipino, Bangladeshi, Chinese, or other, no immigrant group before them, not my ancestors or anyone else’s anywhere, can boast what they can.
Slave driving big business anti-federalists here like to change the subject when talking about the facts of their case. They like to change the subject to the impoverished situations in their country of origin, or tell about the U.S. immigration issues in the SW and Florida borders. That is misleading, deceptive, and completely irrelevant to their story and their case. Remember, no immigrants, can boast what they can.
I can assure you, that every decent American that knows this story is proud of their contributions to America. I can assure you, that every decent American aware that you have long been denied unalienable human rights is outraged and we hope that justice, no matter how slow, will prevail here.
I believe the U.S. should grant improved status or green cards for our long abused guest workers. I will never veer from the belief that they have already earned the right to an unobstructed path to U.S. citizenship. Remember, no immigrants in U.S. history, not my ancestors or anyone else’s anywhere, can boast the accomplishments they can.
Again, welcome to the commonwealth and may your trip be enlightening and productive.
RON HODGES
Puerto Rico, Saipan
