Once again, just like Andre the Giant, I need a posse.
On Thursday morning—July 19, 2007, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources will hold a hearing in Room 366 of the Dirksen Office Building on the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and proposed legislation to end decades of abuse.
As I have documented many times, the corruption and abuse on the Mariana Islands has been (and continues to be) appalling.
As expected, the old guard—the Pirates of Saipan—are sending a delegation to the Hearing. They will try and block legislation to extend US control of immigration and labor laws to the US Territory. They will try and deny justice to the long-abused working class on the CNMI.
I’ll be at the Hearing, supporting reform. It would be great to have some back-up—in the room and across the Country
Can you help? Can you join the posse...
Now I know that many of you can not be in Washington DC on Thursday morning. And I know that bringing justice to this far flung and dysfunctional corner of the American family does not have the draw of more hot button issues. It is hard for this issue to break through the chatter about Fox, impeachment or whatever.
Back in the 1970s, Henry Kissenger had this to say about the Marianas Islands and all the Pacific Trust Territories:
"We’re only talking about ninety thousand people, so who gives a damn?’’
Now, years later the population of the CNMI is around 90,000 and what Kissenger said is still true: Who gives a damn about this place?
Still, if you have been following the growing Abramoff scandal and my Diaries on the scandal and the CNMI, you know it is important to end the abuse. It has been going on for more than twenty-five years. It is another stain on the human rights record of America. It is time to clean it up.
This should be a no-brainer for the 110th Congress. After all, the CNMI/Abramoff issue had an impact last November. We defeated 20 of the Abramoff 65, a group of Republican candidates I identified as having multiple connections to Jack Abramoff. We rode the story of abuse on the CNMI to many of those victories and I think we owe the guest workers on the CNMI some justice.
We also owe the indigenous peoples of the CNMI, American Samoa and the other Pacific Islands the opportunity to have a sustainable and thriving economy that is not rooted in exploitation, corruption and environmental destruction. We owe them a system with some measures of local control to protect their unique cultures from extinction.
The Guest Workers are not the only victims on the CNMI. The failed economic system is also destroying the eco-system of the island, the infrastructure and the culture of the indigenous Chamorro/Carolinian population. A distorted reality has been created.
The CNMI Guest Worker program has created a culture of addiction. This is artfully explained in a new book, Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the Global Economy by John Bowe. This is an important work and I encourage everyone to pre-order a copy. It will challenge you, depress you and provided you a better understanding why slavery is on the rise in our shiny new global economy here at home and around the planet.
The foreign investors, indigenous Chamorro/Carolinian population and relocated US Citizens from the mainland share the obscene and unacknowledged dependence on a permanent underclass of workers. That is the status quo.
And efforts to protect the status quo on the CNMI will only bring more injustice.
Sadly, that is what the powers that run the CNMI are asking for. That is why they have hired the Democratic equivalent of Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist named William Oldaker to push their corruption-as-usual agenda.
The Pirates of Saipan are concerned that Reform Legislation will grant Citizenship to imported workers that they still consider as disposable. They are working very hard to once again block reform or at least shape any Legislation to their favor.
They have three main goals:
- Block a pathway to US Citizenship to ANY Guest Worker on the CNMI, including those with children who are US Citizens.
- Maintain a steady flow of new, time-limited Guest Workers to maintain their corrupt economic system, and
- Maintain the ability to have a special CNMI travel Visa that will allow local control of customs for visitors from China, Russia and elsewhere.
In a final reform legislation, The Pirates of Saipan should lose on all three of their goals. One of my concerns with the current draft of S. 1634 is that it could let the Pirates win on them.
We can stop them.
Senate Bill 1634 (PDF) was introduced by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI). His co-sponsors included Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI), and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). It is a shell of a Bill based on legislation drafted by Bush’s Office of Insular Affairs.
There are some good things about the Bill, but it also has some serious flaws. For one it would deny workers who have been on the CNMI legally for years a pathway to Citizenship, including workers with children who are US Citizens. Currently the CNMI government is deporting these young US Citizen along with their parents.
Deporting US Citizens is just part of an active and aggressive purging of long-time imported workers on the CNMI. In anticipation of reform, the Pirates of Saipan are engaged in something just short of ethnic cleansing. A better term might be Ethnic Weeding and Re-Seeding.
Their goal is not to remove everybody. They can’t. The CNMI economy would collapse without a steady stream of guest workers to exploit. They are addicted to the having their permanent underclass. They are addicted to having their modern slaves.
The way the Pirates of Saipan analyze the situation, the trouble is not their economic system, the real problem is that long-term workers expect rights.
Their goal is to remove people who have grown to expect rights. They are wildly threatened by workers who have learned how to come together across cultural boundaries, how to organize and how to fight back. The goal is to deport these empowered workers by any means necessary and then replace them with some of the millions of fresh workers who will be easily exploited.
New local CNMI Legislation will mandate that future Guest Workers have to leave after three years. This will be a hardship for those who expect stability and competence, but it will prevent future workers from learning that in America they are suppose to have rights.
The current removal of long-time workers is brutal. It is why Buddhi Lal Dhimal—a Nepalese guest worker on the CNMI for the last 10 years—to set himself on fire and died earlier this year:
Stopping this abuse is why I keep writing about this small failed economic experiment in the Western Pacific. It is why my friend Wendy Doromal is spending her summer back on the CNMI documenting what is happening there: Tonight. Today. NOW. It is why workers on the CNMI are signing petitions and writing letters for the Senators in Washington.
And it is why I need your help.
Feel free to come and join me at the Hearing Thursday in Room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building at 9:30 (so far nobody will be there to speak for the workers and we will have to stand in for them).
And please, contact your Senator, especially members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Urge them to support S. 1634.
Even with the problems, the important thing is that CNMI reform legislation moves through the 110th Congress—NOW.
This Bill has some problems, but it can be made stronger with amendments. S. 1634 should be passed so that a stronger Bill can come out of the House and a Conference Committee can merge the two into real reform that would end decades of abuse.
The goal of the Pirates and their allies is to delay legislation, slow it down and once again kill reform. We can not let them run that same game plan again.
For a very long time, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff and the Republican Party blocked reform. If we fail now it will be our fault.
Let’s not fail.
Let’s get S. 1634 passed with the following changes that would:
- Create a pathway to Citizenship for Guest Workers who have been on the CNMI for more than five years—and a Green Card for all workers with children who are US Citizens.
- Outline a clear appeals process for any worker denied Immigration Status and/or other rights by the local CNMI Government through new or existing Federal systems of appeals.
- Mandate that all CNMI entry visa programs—both work and tourist—are run by the Federal Government. (To allow the local CNMI Government to run a tourist visa program is to allow human trafficking.)
- Mandate random, spot check interviews of guest workers and tourists as they arrive and leave the CNMI to ensure that they were (and are not) victims of abuse.
If we can add amendments to make the above changes, S. 1634 will be a better Bill. There are other changes that should be made as well, but S. 1634 is a start. A stronger Bill can come out of the House and then we have a chance for final legislation that will be real reform.
We have to use S. 1634 as the legislative vehicle for CNMI reform because the Ethnic Weeding of workers is well underway on the CNMI. Take a look at these headlines and stories from just the last two weeks:
- Tourism leaders: Save China market
- Doromal and Woodruff said to join vigil on federalization
- ‘Over 2,500 young US citizens will live in exile’
- Dhimal’s daughter, husband to join FAS rally
- Court approves objection of defunct garment firm vs workers’ claims
- Stayman: Military build-up a factor in drafting federalization bill
- FAS family: Immigration amendments will tear us apart
- 3 US advocates help push federalization
- Doromal is back, taking testimonies from alien workers for federalization
- The show must go on
- Group launches signature campaign for federalization
- Stayman: Federalization to stabilize NMI economy
- Migrant workers pray for federalization
- We are not racist nor prejudiced
- Chamber: No to federalization, no to NMI labor bill
- Labor sanctions defunct garment firm
- Labor has no role in either immigration, criminal cases
- Guerrero takes offense at Kuwait comparison
- Employers of houseworkers covered by wage hike need to amend contracts
- FAS families protest vs proposed status change
- Businesses said ready for initial wage hike
- Dekada to hold vigil for federalization
- No to grandfathering of long-term alien workers, says SCC
- Alien workers seeking transfer must have alternate employers
- Change sought in status of FAS citizens' relatives
- Requests for termination of houseworkers, farmers rise
- $1,000 bounty on 'Illegal aliens'
- Labor notes spike in sponsorship schemes
- 2 overstaying aliens to be deported
- $55K fine for defunct garment factory, officers
- Workers losing hope they will be paid by defunct garment factory
- Wiseman orders closure of proceedings in deportation case
- Minimum wage hike as it applies to small businesses
- Other critical facts about the new minimum wage
- Critical facts about the new minimum wage
- Bishop disturbed by messages of hatred, exclusion
- 2 illegal workers to leave NMI
- CHC gives alien worker expired medicine
- 2 workers waiting for settlement payment ordered to leave NMI
- Local immigration woes
- Crime stoppers program targets illegal aliens
- 1 of 12 boat passengers facing deportation
- Cured already
- House passes labor reform measure
- Taotao Tano, press secretary ‘narrow down’ differences
- Call center opening on hold due to federalization proposal
- Workers demand back wages before leaving NMI
- Taotao Tano stages rally vs alien workers group
- After 12 years, workers still waiting for back wages
- Worker pays over $4K for Saipan job
- Court orders deportation of 2 overstaying aliens
These stories present multiple patterns of abuse, ethnic weeding and evidence of a failed economic experiment in the shadows of globalization. We have a moral duty to fix this mess.
Next week, on July 25, the new minimum wage will kick in. The Pirates of Saipan will use it to fire thousands of long-time workers. Then they will have 30 days to find a new job. Then they will be on a 45 day clock to deportation.
That gives us 75 days (until October 8) to pass a final bill and have it signed into law. If it takes longer, more workers will be cleansed from the CNMI and denied justice.
We need to stand with them as they fight for justice.
The stories of the abuse on the CNMI helped us defeat folks like Richard Pombo and Conrad Burns. We have the Senate because we used the story of the CNMI to win votes. We owe these workers justice.
Let’s not fail.
Come and join my posse.
Cheers.