“This is astounding and frightening considering that the CNMI government and the Department of Labor are responsible for establishing and promoting the dysfunctional labor system that keeps the majority of the population disenfranchised and indentured in a two-tiered society,” human rights advocate Wendy Doromal said.
The former Rota teacher said the CNMI government has failed to address labor abuses, including the unpaid judgments totaling $6.1 million owed to foreign workers.
The decisions being made in Washington will directly impact the nonresidents who make up the majority of the adult population in the CNMI, she said.
“The nonresidents pay taxes, but are given no vote, no representation, no voice in decision-making. It is time to ask the federal officials why those who have profited from the fruits of the labor of others are given seats at the table, yet those who have provided the feast are not,” Doromal said.
An ongoing oversight, adequately trained and staffed offices, and strict enforcement of all labor and immigration laws are necessary in a just guest worker program to benefit everyone in commonwealth, she said.
“It is not enough to merely change the name of the guest worker program from the CNMI guest worker program to the federal guest worker program,” she added.
Doromal said the federal government should ensure that “unjust policies and regulations plaguing the current local system are eliminated” in the new federal program.
She said the transitional guest worker program “must reflect democratic and constitutional principles that are lacking in the current local system.”
“It is time to ensure that a secure status is granted to CNMI permanent residents, immediate relatives of United States and FSM citizens, and other categories of nonresidents during the transition period,” she said.
She said it is an “unconscionable act” to deny U.S. citizen children of an education, needed healthcare, and basic necessities including shelter and food.
By allowing the U.S. citizen children to return to the countries of their parents, they will live a life of poverty, and this is “immoral,” Doromal said.
The children of nonresidents are no less U.S. citizens than those born of U.S. citizen parents, she added.
“Our nation has a responsibility to provide protection and equal rights to them. The security and well-being of a U.S. citizen child should not depend on the nationality or status of the parents.”
She reiterated that those who lived and worked in CNMI for a long period of time should be given a permanent status, saying that “through their talent, skills, hard work, and at a great personal sacrifice, they have made major contributions to the community.”
Every nonresident, every child of a nonresident parent, every citizen who supports the plight of the commonwealth’s nonresidents can take action through writing letters, she said.
Doromal brought these letters to the May 19 congressional hearing in Washington, D.C.
She is hoping that the Fitial administration’s anti-federalization lawsuit would fail.
She described the lawsuit as “another attempt to maintain the dysfunctional system, and to keep the guest workers under local control with no chance of improving their status.”
As mandated by the federalization law, she added, a report must be given to the U.S. Congress on May 10, 2010 that includes recommendations “related to granting alien workers lawfully present in the commonwealth on the date of the enactment of such Act United States citizenship or some other permanent legal status.”
“Now is the time to push our recommendations for United States citizenship for alien workers,” she said.
She said she is not giving false hope to the nonresident workers of the CNMI.
She quoted President Obama who said there has never been anything false about hope in the U.S.: “No dream is beyond our grasp if we reach for it, and fight for it and work for it. Because hope is not blind optimism.”
Doromal added, “His words are true. There is nothing false about hope. We have traveled far in the journey for political and social justice. We cannot change course. We must continue to reach for, fight for, and work for permanent U.S. status and a pathway to citizenship for the nonresidents.”
She said U.S. citizenship for hardworking guest workers is a goal of credible human rights and immigrant groups in the U.S. and not just in the CNMI.
“It is promoted because it is an absolutely essential element of any moral, just, and democratic guest worker program,” she said.
