What businesses are now waiting to see is the amount of fees that the feds will charge for the remaining nonresident workers. Businesses are hoping that the fees won’t be excessive ($2,000 per worker), at least during the transition period, but then again we all believed that the feds would include Russia and China in the visa waiver program, which didn’t happen. “You know that this will kill Tinian Dynasty, right?” a CNMI House member asked the feds, whose long-winded reply was bureaucratese for “yes.” On Saipan, hotels, restaurants, bars, stores and taxi cabs, which are not exactly thriving, will also feel the crunch.
Federalization of local immigration, the next round of wage hike and the global recession will further shrink the customer base of the remaining businesses, which will have to further cut their work hours or personnel. Layoffs in the private sector will result in the repatriation of guest workers, who are also customers of local businesses.
With its source of revenue rapidly vanishing, the CNMI government will have no choice but to reduce its services. It won’t be enough so eventually it has to cut work hours or salaries, which will further accelerate the migration of locals to Guam or the states.
You don’t need a crystal ball to see all this.
Federalization was enacted precisely to end the CNMI guest worker program and euthanize the economy created by cheap alien labor. Starting on June 1, the CNMI will have to create a new economy under the same rules applied to other U.S. jurisdictions where hiring nonresidents is a tedious and expensive process.
Some guest workers, however, are still clinging to soothing rumors while ignoring the painful truth staring them in the face.
Let me say it again. The federalization law has no provision that will grant special immigration status to guest workers, however long they have been working and residing here with or without U.S. citizen children. The implementing regs will not change anything in the law. These rules will only explain in detail how the law will be enforced. Rules cannot add something to the law, which can only be changed by another law enacted by the federal government. Walang himala.
I remember that last year, after President Bush signed the federalization law, some kababayans said they were “ecstatic about the prospect of enjoying the benefits of the federal guest worker program.” But how can you “enjoy” these “benefits” if you will be jobless in the next one or two years?
Yet there are still a lot of nonresidents grasping at the following “straw” in the federalization law: “The Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Governor of the Commonwealth, shall report to the Congress not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of the [federalization law]. The report shall include…such recommendations to the Congress, as the Secretary may deem appropriate, related to whether or not the Congress should consider permitting lawfully admitted guest workers lawfully residing in the Commonwealth on such enactment date to apply for long-term status under the immigration and nationality laws of the United States.”
The provision’s language is blindingly clear. It states that the feds — in consultation with the CNMI governor — may recommend, i.e., propose, to Congress to grant legal guest workers long-term U.S. immigration status. There is no guarantee that the legal guest workers will get long-term U.S. immigration status. The law merely states that Congress may consider it — only if the feds, in consultation with the CNMI governor, recommends it. Do we really believe that a politician, the CNMI governor, will willingly antagonize local voters by asking the feds to grant long-term immigration status to nonresidents? Moreover, considering the economic implosion we’re witnessing, how many legal guest workers will be still around on May 8, 2010?
The only way the feds will consider improving the immigration status of CNMI guest workers is if the local people, the American citizens of the Northern Marianas, want it to happen. But that’s not going to happen because certain guest workers love these islands so much that they have to complain about their “sufferings” here, badmouth locals and demand that federal authorities ignore the wishes of their fellow U.S. citizens in the CNMI and wave a magic wand that will turn nonresidents into legal residents. Just like that. Even if it means the disenfranchisement of the native U.S. citizens of this U.S commonwealth.
That’s not going to happen.
Consider the marine monument issue. A slam-dunk. A fait accompli from the get-go. But the feds still had to go through the motion of consulting the local people of the CNMI and their government. Pew had to spend thousands of dollars in the CNMI to create a semblance of local consent, and the White House had to appear it was granting concessions to the commonwealth.
Here’s another example. It took the U.S. Congress more than two decades to pass the federalization law, which was first proposed by the Reagan White House in the mid-1980s. In 2007, the Democrats, back in the saddle on Capitol Hill, could have just passed it faster than you can say Jack Abramoff. But they still had to conduct hearings, one of which was even held on Saipan. The U.S. Congress had to consult the CNMI government and local residents. Not surprisingly, the federalization bill that became law did not include the nonimmigrant status provision for qualified long-term guest workers.
Knowing all this but still believing that a miracle is bound to happen on June 1, 2009 or after May 8, 2010 is just pathetic.
The CNMI government must now plan for the return to the old days when the economy consisted of a hotel or two and a few stores, and customers are mostly employees of a government that can only pay so much.
Guest workers, the smart ones, should cut their expenses, save money, work harder and look for other jobs elsewhere on this planet.
Only the stupid will hope against hope.
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