“It doesn’t make sense for them to be restricting the travels of the workers,” he added.
Fitial said these restrictions are also burdensome for employers and the CNMI economy.
DHS, he added, has the authority to waive the travel restrictions.
It already granted the CNMI’s request to allow Russian and Chinese tourists to visit the islands even without U.S. visas.
The governor said labor rules should be separated from U.S. immigration law which will be applied to the commonwealth starting on Nov. 28.
“We do understand that the U.S. has the right to protect our borders. That is a given. Let them screen the people that we are trying to bring in. If they find that certain people are undesirable, then exclude them. But if they are not, let us be able to process them. What’s so difficult about that? As a matter of fact, we enforce our labor laws better,” he added.
The U.S. labor system has complex rules which, if applied to the CNMI, would make things worse for the remaining businesses on the islands, he said.
