He said the Legislature and the community should reject Sablan’s House Bill 16-86.
“It is a waste of taxpayer’s time and money — she should instead look into our plight, the local people,” he added.
Cruz said the CNMI should instead “embrace” federal immigration law which will be “more stringent” and will supersede all local laws on immigration.
He said Sablan’s bill is trying to “appease a group of nonresidents” without determining whether these individual are legally working in the CNMI.
“It looks like she’s making promises to the nonresident workers when she cannot deliver the promise,” Cruz said.
He added that guest workers “came here with the understanding that they have an employment contract and when it is finished and the employers can no longer afford them, it’s either they seek other employment or go home.”
Cruz said Sablan should “guarantee” that foreign workers who will be granted a five-year permit “can be trusted to spend more of their earnings in the CNMI rather than sending money to their homeland.”
He said the huge number of foreign nationals in the CNMI is a result of “pure self-interest,” adding that these workers are “seeking to prolong their stay in our homeland.”
According to Cruz, “Statistics will prove that the majority of labor abuses were based on exaggerated claims, and that foreigners were responsible for the abuses, human exploitation and human smuggling in our homeland and not our local people.”
He said Sablan “doesn’t know the history of her homeland.”
Cruz also accused Sablan, attorney Stephen Woodfruff, human rights advocate Wendy Doromal, Federal Labor Ombudsman Jim Benedetto and former Interior Deputy Assistant Secretary David Cohen of giving the CNMI a “damaging the reputation” and of making “false and exaggerated accusations of human labor abuses and atrocities.”
