Tonight I drove past the grave of Edgar Allen Poe.
Like me, he rests in Baltimore.
Many of Poe’s stories focused on a common fear of the Victorian era, being buried alive.
That notion seemed appropriate as I pondered a press release from Nick Rahall, Chair of the House Resources Committee: Rahall: CNMI Bill ‘Nails the Coffin Shut' on Abramoff Era.
The bill, H.R. 3079, was reported out of the Committee yesterday. It does a lot right to end the decades of abuse on the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI), but it asks us to pay a steep and immoral price.
It seems that in our 110th Congress the cost of legislation to end the system of abuse is to bury the remaining 20,000 victims alive with the specter of the Abramoff scandal.
Is that a harsh judgment?
Nope.
To the jump...
H.R. 3079 is an important and long overdue piece of legislation. Extending Federal control over the immigration of our run-away US Territory is long overdue.
For years and years a vile and corrupt economic system has been allowed to grow and flourish on the islands of the CNMI. If it could be exploited or sold in the shadows of the global economy it was for sale on the CNMI.
That of course has included people.
A resurgence of slavery is a by-product of "free trade" and globalization.
The shocking new book, Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the Global Economy, by John Bowe details the growth of slavery in the modern era on US soil. This is an important work and I encourage everyone to read it. This book 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. (And check out this interview with John on TreeHugger.com).
Because the CNMI has built its economy on stolen labor, it is prominently featured in the book. Before the start of this year, the system of neo-slavery on the Marianas Islands had been protected—since 1995—by Republicans.
For years, Democrats, led by Congressman George Miller and President Bill Clinton fought to end the abuse. They fought to extend US labor, immigration and customs laws to the runaway Territory. They also fought to grant long-time guest workers rights and a clear pathway to US Citizenship. In the 1990s some of these workers had already been on the CNMI for 15 years. Tonight they have been there for 25 years—and they are still without rights.
The Pirate of Saipan always called this effort to extend US laws, Federalization. And they have fought it tooth and nail.
For years, Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay always won in their defense of the indefensible. They were always able to block any effort to reform this cesspool of corruption befouling the Western Pacific and tainting the image of America around the globe.
The most horrific stories of Saipan—sweatshops, brothels and forced abortions—were used to great impact in the 2006 election. We used the tragedy, horror and personal stories of these workers to WIN seats and take control of Congress.
I helped in this effort. So did the workers on the CNMI. They were happy to help because they believed that a Democratic Congress would FINALLY bring justice to the Marianas Islands.
So did I, but we may have underestimated the price.
H.R. 3079 will go a long way towards ending the abuse. It will put immigration for the CNMI under Federal Control. It will strengthen labor laws and provide more protection for any future workers who travel to work in the CNMI.
This is great, but it ignores the 20,000 people already on the islands and the thousands more who have already been purged in anticipation of reform.
The bill, H.R. 3079, had little to offer these workers. In fact, the only thing that it offered was granting a very weak immigration status to any workers who had been in the CNMI for more than five years. And now, even this weak element has been removed.
Before the mark-up, the Bill would have extend the Immigration Status of the Freely Associated States (FAS) to these workers. That is less than the Green Cards that were on the table in the days of Bill Clinton, but it was a real improvement (when compared to nothing). FAS status would grant these workers rights, liberty and some freedom of movement. They would have been able to move to other US Territories in the Pacific and any US State, including Hawaii.
And here it became a problem.
The Freely Associated States are those former Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands who opted for independence instead of becoming a US Territory back when plebiscites were held in the 1970s.
It was the Cold War back then and we wanted political control of these islands to keep them out of Chinese or Russian hands. To seal our influence with those island Nations choosing Independence we offered their citizens a limited immigration status. They could travel to our US Territories, Hawaii and the mainland. Most stayed close to home.
Everything was fine until the Gingrich Revolution. As part of their attack on the imagined "welfare state", Newt and the boys stripped anybody with FAS status from the Federal Safety net. Since then, the poorest of this class of migrants has become a burden for the islands they moved to—if they become sick, homeless, unemployed, etc.—they become a cost for local government and thanks to Newt and the gang the Federal Government had abdicated their responsibility to this class of immigrants that the Federal Government had created.
For years after the GOP takeover, it was a brewing problem, but it was largely solved some years ago when the Federal Government started making large "migration assistance" payments to Hawaii and the other US Pacific Island Territories impacted.
But racism can raise its ugly head anywhere, even on your standard issue Pacific Island paradises.
And so it came to pass that even this limited FAS immigration status was stripped from the CNMI Reform Bill. The effort was led by the Hawaiian delegation, Guam and the other Delegates for our Territories. Fear of more lazy FAS migrants was the "stated" reason, but really it was racism—plain and simple—and it was disgusting just as all racism is disgusting.
Worse, the Democrats in Congress went along with this betrayal. It sucks, but Saipan Sucks! And so do we!
In his press release, Rahall had this to say:
The House Natural Resources Committee, led by Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), today approved comprehensive legislation to extend U.S. immigration laws to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and provide the territory with a non-voting Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives.
"This bill nails the coffin shut on the Abramoff era of undue political influence in the Congress, when under the former Republican majority, he was hired to keep this legislation under lock-down," Rahall said. "This measure will also close the curtain on an era of slave labor and forced prostitution in the CNMI garment industry, and, as well, help to stem the flow of smuggling, and potentially terrorists, who seek to gain access to the United States through this territorial possession."
Under the former Republican-controlled Congress, efforts to reform the CNMI's local immigration system halted when disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff used his influence to prevent the legislation from advancing in the House.
The Northern Mariana Islands Immigration, Security and Labor Act (ISLA) (H.R. 3079), introduced by Subcommittee on Insular Affairs Chairwoman Donna M. Christensen (D-VI) and co-sponsored by Rahall, would extend enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act to the CNMI and establish a federally administered guest worker program on the island. While the non-resident guest worker population was significantly greater than the resident population in the 2000 U.S. Census - today, with no reliable data available on the island's total population, it is believed that non-residents still outnumber residents.
Christensen said, "For one reason or another, shortly after the transition from trust territory to U.S. territory, Congress never exercised its authority to extend Federal immigration law to the Northern Marianas. The island has had two decades of local control over immigration policy. For the future prosperity of the CNMI and for the security of our nation, I believe the path should now lead in a different direction."
The legislation would also provide for a non-voting Delegate to represent the CNMI in the U.S. House of Representatives, starting with the Federal general election of 2008. Consistent with all non-voting Delegates currently serving in Congress, the CNMI Delegate would possess the same parliamentary rights as any Member of the House, including the right to sponsor or cosponsor bills, to offer amendments to pending measures, and to offer most other parliamentary measures.
The Administration has testified in support of the legislation before both the House and Senate authorizing committees. The Subcommittee on Insular Affairs held a field hearing in the CNMI in August 2007, and heard testimony from the leaders and residents of the island on the proposed legislation.
It is great news that Federal control will finally be extended to the CNMI, but it sucks that we are condemning 20,000 or so workers to oblivion in the bargain.
With the removal of the "grandfather" provision, granting FAS status to long time and legal foreign contract workers, H.R. 3079 insults anybody who cares about justice.
Did I mention that it really, really sucks?
On one hand, the bill must pass or the system of abuse will continue.
And on the other hand, if it is passed as the Bill now stands we will condemn up to 20,000 people to oblivion.
We will force them into a Kafkaesque hell, a permanent Catch 22, where their lives, hopes and dreams will be destroy to placate the racist fears of the Hawaiian delegation, Guam, the CNMI and their enablers in the 110th Congress.
In no way can you say this Bill ‘Nails the Coffin Shut' on Abramoff Era. Not when you are planning to bury alive the hopes for justice and the lives of more than 20,000 human beings.
We can do better.
We must do better!
The mark-up yesterday was witnessed by long-time human rights worker (and American Hero) Wendy Doromal. Not surprisingly, some members of Congress and their staffers had trouble making eye contact as they betrayed the long suffering workers of the CNMI. Wendy had come with yet another petition signed by thousands of workers pleading with yet another US Congress for justice. It was entered into the record. Here is their statement:
We are requesting that the provision to award nonimmigrant status to long-term guest workers remain in both H.R. 3079 and S.1634. We understand that legislative leaders from our neighboring Pacific islands of Guam and Hawaii are suggesting that the provision in H.R. 3079 that allows for the nonimmigrant status of long-term guest workers be removed from the bill. The logic is that if the guest workers are given this status they would move to Guam and Hawaii becoming an economic burden to those islands.
Although we are a diverse group, we would like to make it clear that for the most part if given status our intent would not be to leave the CNMI, which has become our home. We have no present intent to leave the CNMI. We have employment, families, and friends here. We volunteer in the community and we support the schools. Our sentiments are much as expressed by a recent letter to the editor appearing in local newspapers, a copy of which is attached for your information.
Any problems and lack of stability that we encounter is due to the fact that presently we have no status and no security. If given status we will be able to help rebuild the fallen economy and persist with our major contributions to the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands. We do not have job offers from Guam or Hawaii. We have no means to travel to those islands as individuals or with our entire families. We do not have connections, friends, or families in those places. We would leave the CNMI only if economic conditions dictate competition with indigenous workers for scarce jobs or we were invited to build the proposed bases in Guam or where we are needed in other employment areas that offer secure jobs and opportunities. We pose no threat to workers or governments on neighboring Pacific islands under the U.S. flag, and will not be a burden to any community. We are skilled laborers and professionals who have diligently served in all of the major industries and fields in the CNMI.
While it is true that when we were recruited, we were not promised status or a pathway to citizenship, many of us have lived in the CNMI 5, 10, 20, 30 years or more and have raised children here. Our children are United States citizens and know only the CNMI as their home. Some of our children are members of the U.S. Armed Forces and some of them are fighting in Iraq. Some of us have spent more years of our lives in the CNMI than in our homelands. In any event, the argument (that we entered knowing that our entry for work would not qualify us for a permanent status) misses the point. We are not claiming a right; we are making an appeal for fairness and justice. When we entered, we also did not anticipate that we would be staying for so long. But the CNMI needed us, and CNMI lawmakers allowed us to stay. We have paid our dues and deserve a better status than we have had all these many years. U.S. immigration law recognizes that temporary workers can become permanent; CNMI law does not. It is up to the U.S. Congress to remedy this inequity.
More than one CNMI leader has recognized this fact. The Marianas Variety reported on February 27, 2004 that former president of the 1985 and 1995 Northern Marianas Constitutional Conventions, Herman T. Guerrero, observed that workers who had been living in the CNMI for 15 to 20 years would have already gotten permanent residency status if they were in the United States, and stated, "We need to address this issue. We cannot continue to disenfranchise them." Likewise, good governance advocate, Tina Sablan testified at the August 15, 2007 field hearing in support of the granting of enhanced status to long-term alien residents of the CNMI, and has stood firm in that position against sometimes heated opposition. Ms. Sablan’s stance has been vindicated by her apparent victory of a seat in the House of Representatives in the highly competitive District 1 election this past November 3.
If we will be forced to leave the CNMI with our children, they will not have the benefits that other U.S. citizen children living on U.S. soil have and deserve. They will be living with jobless parents in strange lands. They will not have the educational opportunities that they have known here. They will suffer from language barriers because most of them only speak English. They will have lower quality of health care and nutrition. Many guest workers that travel to other countries in the world to work are given opportunities to become citizens of those countries and are awarded political rights. The status offered in H.R. 3079 and S. 1634 does not award political rights, such as the right to vote or even to serve on CNMI juries. But it does guarantee security through the right to live and work in the United States, so we would be able to remain in the CNMI to support our families without the constant worry of losing status and being forced to depart or deported.
The CNMI labor and immigration regime is too often insensitive or oppressive to workers. It is also economically inefficient. What we seek and the CNMI needs is a free market in labor – the ability to make our skills available in the marketplace to one, two, or more employers; for the number of hours needed by the employer; to change employers when the employer-employee relationship is unsatisfactory without having to go through an administrative process; to have employer-employee relationships that are not distorted by repatriation risk and regulatory obstacles and overhead. This is a principle that should be endorsed by Reagan Republicans and liberal Democrats alike. Most importantly, a free market in labor – as would be created by the nonimmigrant status provisions currently in H.R. 3079 and S. 1634 – would reduce business costs, make the CNMI economy more efficient, and foster economic revitalization. Extension of U.S. immigration law to the CNMI without addressing the labor issue likely would have precisely the opposite result and push the CNMI into even deeper economic doldrums.
Currently, too many of the guest workers, including many of us, have suffered from labor abuses. This is also due to the lack of status. As long as CNMI employers know that the guest workers coming to the CNMI can be looked at as replaceable goods or products, rather than as respected humans and future citizens, the abuses will not stop. Although there are good and honest employers in the CNMI, too many employers threaten to terminate many guest workers for illegal reasons. These guest workers feel that they have to do what these employers want, or they will lose their jobs. We are threatened that we will be terminated or will not have our contracts renewed if we don’t work overtime hours without overtime pay, if we ask our employers to pay for our health care, if we refuse illegal deductions, if we refuse to pay for our renewals and paperwork, if we are too outspoken on issues, or if we insist that contract provisions that employers want to illegally omit are followed. Some of us have even been threatened that we will lose our jobs if we do not perform sexual acts. Without a chance to have status or a pathway to citizenship, we will continue to be merely disposable products, and will remain indentured servants even under federal law.
We understand from reading letters to the editor in our local papers, from Guam Legislature Resolution 80, from remarks by Guam and CNMI officials, and from information on the TaoTao Tano website that racism may also be a reason that citizens in Guam and the CNMI do not want this provision kept in the bill. Some people fear that their racial balance will be upset and the native population will be marginalized. We are legal workers who came here through legal channels. The CNMI government processes our papers and they control how many of us work and live in their islands. The CNMI government has controlled the racial balance for as long as we have been invited to work here, 30 or more years. No legislation passed by the U.S. Congress should be decided on the basis of communities attempting to control their racial makeup, or on the basis of racial prejudice. The United States government has no legitimate interest in protecting prevailing social, political, and economic elites in the Pacific islands under U.S. jurisdiction.
The CNMI government claims to have "settled" 3,400 labor cases. Most are not settled. Transfer relief has been granted in an attempt to cut short the time the worker can remain in the CNMI even while monetary claims remain for subsequent decision. Notice by publication has been used as a shortcut to closing old cases. An extraordinarily oppressive new labor and immigration law seems poised for passage by the Commonwealth Legislature (even as its principle author appears to have been defeated in the past election). Thousands of us received judgments in our favor stating that our employers owed us money. The CNMI government never enforced the majority of these judgments and many of us have not received the money that is owed to us. If we are not given status, we will return to our homelands penniless and the employers who owe us money may be allowed to hire new employees under the new federal system. We are asking to remain in the CNMI until we collect our judgments. Some employers have escaped liability for our awards by going through bankruptcy, or by simply closing up and disappearing from the island. In these cases, the only chance we have at becoming whole is if we are granted a status that will allow us, through our own industry, to increase our earning power and thus, over the years, more or less offset our prior losses incurred on CNMI soil at the hands of CNMI employers.
We suggest that exit interviews be given to all departing guest workers so they can report their treatment on U.S. soil. We are asking for exit interviews so that we can report outstanding labor or criminal cases, and if money is owed to us. Some workers have been unjustly deported to their homelands by the CNMI without collecting what is due them or even before their cases have been concluded and their claims decided.
We are requesting that you include a provision for status and an eventual pathway to citizenship for the legal long-term guest workers, for parents of U.S. citizen children who live and work in the CNMI, and for those new guest workers that the government will need to invite to U.S. shores to perform the jobs that many U.S. citizens in the CNMI shun or are not trained to perform. We are asking that you uphold the principles of democracy, justice, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (particularly Article 23 thereof) when considering our fate. We are requesting that the provision to award nonimmigrant status to long-term guest workers remain in both H.R. 3079 and S. 1634.
Thank you for you consideration.
The undersigned guest workers of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
As I said, there are thousands of signatures. Among them is a Chinese couple. They had one child in China and three more on Saipan. Those three are US Citizen and that makes them second class citizen back in China. There, the kids could not go to school or have health care unless the parents and children renounce their US Citizenship and pay a massive fine for violating China’s one child policy. This is just a quick sketch of one family that will be doomed under the current version of the Bill.
There is a similar story for every signature and more stories for those to afraid to challenge the Pirates of Saipan. And all of the workers need to fear the powers that control the ongoing corruption masquerading as the CNMI government. It is a lawless US Territory.
How bad is it?
Well, the Governor is about to sign a new local CNMI law, HB 15-38, the Alien Workers Act that has been designed to punish long time foreign contract workers. It is a racist, insane and self-destructive law. And yet, it is normal operating procedure for the CNMI.
This letter to the Saipan Tribune by Jim Benedetto details many of the problems. Benedetto is the US Ombudsman for Labor issues. He gets to watch as the abuse goes on and on and on and on. His power is limited, but he has been able to save some people. His office and mandate should be expanded by any reform legislation. It is not and that also sucks.
Twenty years of corruption have left a gaping wound in the economic and moral fabric of the Marianas Islands. As it stands now, the House Resources Committee has reported out a Bill, H.R. 3079, that will stop the bleeding. But it ignores the current infection of injustice.
There are at least 20,000 cases of labor abuse in the CNMI. These are people. Like you and me. For most folks they are invisible. I plead with you to see them. I ask you to be their voice in America.
Ask your member of Congress about H.R. 3079. Ask them to re-instate the provision granting FAS status to long-time workers. Urge your Senators to keep the provision in S. 1634.
Please help.
The Democratic 110th Congress can not bury these workers with the specter of Jack Abramoff and then wash their hands. That would be horrific.
Like those Victorians that Poe wrote about, I fear that folks are about to be buried alive. Only in this case, I know it to be true. And I know that we can stop this.
Please talk about it. Bring it up. Ask your elected officials.
Ask your favorite Presidential Candidate (especially if they claim to see invisible people).
The abuse on the CNMI will not end with a press release. Or even a piece of legislation that stops the bleeding. It will only end when justice is extended to the victims of abuse.
This has been going on for way over twenty years.
We used the stories of the CNMI abuse and exploited the real people behind those abuse narratives to win control of Congress. We are planning to exploit their stories again in 2008 as we try to defeat out this or that Republican who helped Tom and Jack maintain the system of neo-slavery on Saipan.
In our 2006 bargain to elect Jon Tester, or Jerry McNerney or Kirsten Gillibrand or any of the races where we beat a Republican member of the Abramoff 65, we implicitly promise these workers relief and we promised the American people that we would clean up the mess of Republican corruption left behind in the CNMI.
It is time to keep our promise.
It is time to end this.
Only justice can bury the specter of the Abramoff Scandal.
H.R. 3079 does not include justice for the long time workers, so the only thing it nails down is a press release. For victory we need more.
Call me madcap, but I want more.
I want justice.
Let get this done!
Cheers.
UPDATE: Not everybody on Saipan Sucks.
I've made this point before, but it is worth making again.
There are folks in the CNMI fighting against the corrupt Fitial Administration and the Pirates of Saipan.
One of them is Ruth L. Tighe. She is a long-time columnist and political observer of the CNMI. She is also a blogger. Her blog
On My Mind..., has been up and running since 1997. She predates the term blog.
Anyway, she recently wrote a letter to the Saipan Tribune. It is good advice for anybody wanting to help the workers on the CNMI achieve justice. Here it is:
'Let your voices be heard'
While Governor Fitial’s lobbyists seem to have succeeded in convincing the U.S. House subcommittee on Insular Affairs that grandfathering long-staying foreign workers-a provision of the so-called "federalization" bill being debated in the U.S. Congress-will be bad not only for the CNMI, but also for Guam and Hawaii, the Senate in its version still contains that provision.
I have been led to believe that, if there is sufficient groundswell in support of retaining that provision, the Senate may be willing to fight to keep it in its version of the bill, and in the compromise that will eventually be reached between the House and Senate versions. At the moment, only Wendy Doromal, as spokesperson for foreign workers in the CNMI, and Tina Sablan have been very vocal in their support of that provision-not enough to reach the needed "tipping point" that would reverse the present situation.
Letters, comments, e-mails, phone calls should be made to members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, headed by Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka at 141 Hart Senate Office Bldg., Washington, D.C. 20510, phone: (202) 224-6361, or email through his web address: http://akaka.senate.gov/... It would help if copies were sent to the Washington Rep at 2121 R Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008, phone, (202) 673-5869 or local phone 64-5651/52, or e-mail at peteatenorio@yahoo.com.
Granted the CNMI does not get to vote in the U.S. Congress, but in this case, since the proposed legislation is concerned solely with the CNMI, Congress is bound to listen.
Writers need to point out that the fear being spread among opponents of the grandfathering clause are not valid and are based on faulty premises. While it is true that some of the people who have emigrated from the FAS to the CNMI, Guam, Hawaii, are unskilled, and burden the infrastructure, that is not true of the foreign workers who have been brought to the CNMI. These people are workers, they are employed, they pay taxes, they are net contributors wherever they go. One has only to look at the extensive participation by foreign workers in the CNMI in their own and others’ island cleanup efforts, their participation in the sports scene, their participation in many other beneficial community activities.
Writers might also want to note that the grandfathering provision is just as important to the locals as it is to the foreign workers. Under the current system, foreign workers basically have two options: to "behave" and work for minimum wage, or to go home and work for pennies. The unlimited supply of workers in the CNMI willing to work for minimum wages causes downward pressure on wages in the private sector. Because of the low wages, an entire generation of locals hasn’t even considered working in the private sector.
Everyone recognizes that the CNMI has a two-tier economy, even if the Fitial administration chooses to deny it. The "federalization" bill, by allowing workers to move elsewhere in the U.S., would give them more options than just working for minimum wage in the CNMI, and thus, more economic power. This would lessen the downward pressure that the present situation has exerted on wages up until now. Instead, it would create a new equilibrium, where some workers would leave, giving those who stay a greater ability to bargain for higher wages. This, in turn, would create more private sector opportunities for locals, because there would be fewer guest workers and less pressure for wages to sink below the level at which locals are willing to work.
Moreover, it is high time that the people of the CNMI moved into the 21st Century, if you will, and recognized that all human beings are worthy of dignity and respect, and that the Golden Rule, of doing unto others as one would be done by, is not merely something one reads about it books or hears about in church, but a humane, practical, necessary reality if the human race is to prosper.
People power can achieve miracles. It’s time that reasonable, thinking people of the CNMI tried their hand at working a miracle, and made sure that the "grandfather" provision in the federalization bill becomes law! Let your voices be heard!
Ruth L. Tighe
Tanapag
I wish one of our Democrats in Congress and/or running for the White House would speak with such clarity and courage.
Cheers