He criticized Interior’s recommendation for guest workers, describing it as “sloppily written.”
Woodruff, a former Senate legal counsel, was one of those who testified during the public hearing on Interior’s recommendation at the Kagman Community Center on Wednesday night.
Interior’s report to Congress, Woodruff said, will ruin the good relationship between the CNMI’s indigenous people and the guest workers.
One of Interior’s recommendations is to grant U.S. citizenship to guest workers who have been here legally for at least give years.
Woodruff said locals are naturally anxious about the impact of Interior’s report, which, he added, not only failed to do what the U.S. Congress asked Interior to do but it also created a climate of fear among the local community.
Woodruff also blamed the department’s federal ombudsman for its failure to do its job.
He said it was the ombudsman’s office that helped prepare the report.
The ombudsman’s office, he added, conducted a registration process that was “entirely improper” and not consistent with the law.
Some of the locals are now hostile to the guest workers, Woodruff said.
Variety was unable to get comments from Federal Labor Ombudsman Pam Brown.
Interior’s recommendations, Woodruff said, are not what the guest workers asked for.
He said there has to be a “door” that will allow qualified guest workers to secure better immigration status, but it has to be through the requirements set by the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act.
For his part, former Speaker Pete Guerrero said the bad publicity regarding the treatment of guest workers in the CNMI also caused Interior to come up with the report.
But giving improved status automatically to the foreign workers is in violation of the spirit of the Covenant, he said in his oral testimony.
About 30 people attended the public hearing that was conducted by the Senate Committee on Federal Relations and Independent Agencies and chaired by Sen. Ralph DLG. Torres, R-Saipan.
