Cruz said elected leaders should be blamed for the CNMI’s “economic crash” which they “allowed to happen.”
“We strongly disagree with your economic analysis that a mass exodus of the non-resident guest workers here in our homeland is disastrous should the federal government continue forward with the promulgation of the regulations as stipulated in U.S. Public law 110-229,” Cruz said in a letter to Rep. Tina Sablan, Ind.-Saipan, and the main sponsor of H.B. 16-86.
Sablan said her bill will liberalize the labor market and open up opportunities for the CNMI’s sluggish economy.
Labor Deputy Secretary Cinta M. Kaipat earlier urged the House Judiciary and Government Operations not to endorse the passage of the “unfortunate and flawed bill.”
“Even though it says that permanent residence is not available, the bill creates conditions under which virtually every foreign worker in the commonwealth will become eligible for a residence status that can be renewed indefinitely, and thus is ‘permanent,’ ” Kaipat said in a letter to the committee.
The House has already shelved the bill.
Cruz said guest workers have contributed immensely to the CNMI.
He said the indigenous people live in harmony and work alongside with guest workers who, he added, have benefited socially and economically while residing and working in the CNMI.
According to Cruz, the flawed local labor and immigration system allowed guest workers to remain on island for many years.
He said some guest workers have made the CNMI their home and left there other families in their countries.
“So-called human rights activists, including you, have argued [that these guest workers have] U.S. born children and it wouldn’t be right for them to go to a foreign country where their children would be considered outcasts” Cruz said in a letter to Sablan.
Parents, he added, are ultimately responsible for their children and no one else.
“Children, including disabled children, are now being used as frontlines by there own parents toward their quest for improved immigration status,” he said.
