Today is a monumental day for me, my family, human rights advocates, and all of the guest workers in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). President Bush signed S. 2739 this morning applying US immigration law to the CNMI.
In 1990, I wrote my first letter to federal officials calling their attention to the labor and human rights abuses I was witnessing in the CNMI. I asked them to enforce federal labor and immigration laws on US soil. Eighteen years later, after an arduous journey, finally reform legislation that will apply U.S. immigration law to the CNMI was signed into law...
In May 1995, I testified at the US Senate Hearing in Washington, DC., telling the Senators of unimaginable labor, civil, and human rights abuses being inflicted upon innocent foreign contract workers who were invited to labor on US soil. I pleaded for reform. I believed that no member of Congress who possessed a heart, a conscience, or a sense of justice could listen to my testimony, and allow the corruption and abuses to continue. I knew my country was the bearer for human rights. I had promised the guest workers that I would fight for them, and I would help them to get justice through legal means. I expected legislation to be passed that year.
Why shouldn’t I have expected that? Responsibility for such human rights abuses lies ultimately with the US Congress, which oversees CNMI minimum wage and immigration policies. This is a responsibility that the new Republican Congress in 1995 seemed to embrace. Elton Gallegly was the Republican Chair of the House Resource Committee and had introduced comprehensive reform legislation. After my husband and I made trips to the Philippines to meet with the President and the Secretaries of Labor and Foreign Affairs, the government of the Philippines banned high risk workers such as waitresses, maids, and bar girls from going to the CNMI. I really believed the truth was out and reform was around the corner.
Then the CNMI hired Jack Abramoff to block and defeat takeover legislation; and to vilify credible attorneys, federal workers, the media, and human rights advocates, (myself included) who told the truth about the CNMI. Over the years, many times bi-partisan reform legislation has been introduced. A CNMI reform bill introduced by Republican Senator Frank Murkowski and Democrat Senator Daniel Akaka unanimously passed the Senate. However, Bob Schaffer, Don Young, John Doolittle,Ralph Hall, and Dana Rohrabacher joined convicted felon Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay, and other conspirators to continually block reform legislation that would have ended abuses. They stood in the way of justice for the victims, and should accept responsibility for the abuses that continue to this day. They, and those who supported the lobbyists and CNMI government’s plan to perpetuate the system of abuses, need to apologize to every guest worker who has been abused, scammed, is owed unpaid wages, or has otherwise suffered in the commonwealth.
Over the years, many times I have picked up my 1995 testimony and read it. It could have been written in any year after it was written; it could have been written this year. It was never “old news” as the lobbyists and CNMI government claimed. The names of the victims may have changed, but the same abuses continued. The truth is that in the 18 years I have fought for the rights for the disenfranchised underclass, very few significant positive changes ever took place.
Representatives Bob Schaffer, Don Young, Richard Pombo, Chris Cannon, and John Doolittle sat on the House Resources Committee. This committee is charged with oversight and protection of the islands. The members had an ethical and moral obligation to correct the situation in the CNMI. Representatives Bob Schaffer, Don Young, Richard Pombo, Chris Cannon, and John Doolittle had a choice between doing the right thing and the wrong thing. They chose money and political power over moral obligation. They refused to do the right thing. As Abramoff’s correspondence and billing records to the CNMI indicate, these foot soldiers were an essential thread in Abramoff’s tapestry of corruption.
Some received campaign contributions, and returned the favor by giving campaign contributions or campaign endorsements to Ben Fitial, former sweatshop executive, former speaker and the current governor. Fitial returned his favor by getting the legislature to renew Abramoff’s contract.
As a member of the Resource Committee, all members were privy to hundreds of letters, documents, victim statements, and reports from government agencies including status reports from the Department of Interior, Department of Justice, and Department of Labor. Some received personal certified letters from me in 1997 outlining the human rights abuses, and pleading for them to support legislation. I also sent 5 other letters addressed to the Resource Committee Chairman Don Young and its members including two letters from the workers pleading for justice that had pages of signatures.
When I learned that Don Young and John Doolittle would be visiting the island in 1999, I sent a letter to the Resource Committee asking the visiting members to please set aside a block of time to leave the planned agenda and go on their own to meet with the workers on the streets and in businesses, walk through barracks and houses where they stayed, look into their eyes and listen to their stories.
Corruption has a human face. To me the victims of the abuses are not statistics, or throw away lives to be sacrificed to support the garment industry or promote an “economic miracle of the free market system” as they declared. I lived with these people, I worked with them, and many are my dear friends. I married a wonderful, kind and dear man, a musician, who was once a foreign contract worker and a victim of labor abuse. It breaks my heart when I think of all of the workers who were scammed, cheated, abused, and sent home without justice or a penny in their pockets. What happened in the CNMI is a scar on the face of democracy and the reputation of the United States of America, the flagship of human rights in the world.
I know the human face of corruption. I met hundreds of victims who suffered abuses. I met Bangladeshi men who sold their homes and land to pay a $7,000 recruitment fee to work in the United States. When they arrived in Saipan there was no employer and no job. I met dozens of rape victims. A widowed Filipina who was working as a maid to support her children so they could go to school. She worked 7 days a week, 17 hours a day for $50 a month. Her employer raped her. I flew her to the Health Center on Saipan where doctors confirmed she had been raped. The employer was never prosecuted and she gave birth to his child. I met workers with serious diseases like tuberculosis who were not being treated even though the law states employers must bear the cost of employee’s health care. I met a child who was recruited from the Philippines at age 14 to dance and perform lewd sex acts on stage. I met a Bangladeshi man who stared into my video camera with hauntingly sad eyes and declared, “We are all going to die. We have no food, no place to sleep.” I met a young farmer who was tortured by his employer. They pushed the end of a shotgun into his neck and burned him with cigarettes. I met hysterical women who were forced to be prostitutes then locked in shipping containers at night; scammed victims who never received a penny because employers said they were saving their money or it was going to recruitment fees. I met maids and farmers who were employed by people who were on food stamps and had no income to pay them. I met a young woman who worked in a garment factory and became pregnant. She was told she must have an abortion in one of the underground clinics on Saipan or return to China to have an abortion. I met others who were not allowed to attend church services. While most of the worst abuses are in the past, if you read the Saipan Tribune, you will know that illegal recruitment, unpaid wages, human trafficking, and other abuses continue to this day. Hopefully, with the signing of this bill, the CNMI can restore its reputation and all of the corruption and abuses will end.
For decades the Commonwealth Government has abused the privilege of maintaining local control of immigration and the minimum wage by firmly establishing an elitist, exclusive government and society. The system has fed the pockets of leaders, politicians and businessmen while exploiting the powerless and the voiceless. Today, as it was when I left the islands, foreign contract workers make up the majority of the adult population of the CNMI, but live as a disenfranchised underclass. While they contribute to the good of society and pay taxes, they have no voice in decisions that will affect them, cannot serve on juries, and are excluded from some government social programs.
We still have work to do. The guest workers are in the CNMI working legally; many of them have lived and worked there longer than they have lived in their homelands. Thousand of them have US citizen children. These people deserve a pathway to citizenship. That is our next battle. I am not sure that I have eighteen more years, and many of the guest workers do not have 18 years to devote to another battle either. We will need your help.
I made a promise –I promised the workers I would use legal means to get justice for them I told them that America was truly a good county and our legislators would not allow the corruption and human rights abuses that were occurring in the CNMI to continue. Until today, that promise had gone unfulfilled. President Bush signed S. 2739 this morning helping to keep that promise. I cannot help but wonder what would have happened if that legislation had not been blocked by lobbyists, CNMI government officials (including many American-born attorneys), and members of the U.S. Congress.
I have forgiven Jack Abramoff. Last year I wrote to him, and I received a reply from him in July. I have not forgiven Don Young, Bob Schaffer, John Doolittle, Richard Pombo, Dana Rohrabacher, Ralph Hall, Chris Cannon, and all of the other foot soldiers who turned their backs on justice and blocked reform legislation. They are responsible for perpetuating the suffering of thousands of innocent guest workers. They broke the trust of the American people, and every person who elected them. They helped to tarnish the image of our country in the eyes of thousands of guest workers, and in the eyes of the world. They perpetuated a corrupt system that resulted in thousands of senseless abuses. They need to be held responsible.
I am going to use my time today to celebrate this victory with my family and friends. I refer you to my website: Unheard No More! for information on the signing of the bill (including recognition for some special people who made this possible) and more information on my friends, the guest workers of the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. I also refer you to diaries by my good friend, dengre. As dengre says, "Cheers!"