SENATE President Joseph M. Mendiola is urging the Bush administration to persuade the U.S. Congress to amend the federalization bill’s nonimmigrant status provision for long-term guest workers, saying it will “drain” the CNMI of its workforce.Mendiola, Covenant-Tinian, told U.S. Interior Deputy Assistant Secretary David B. Cohen to “delete in its entirety” or amend extensively the nonimmigrant status provision in S. 1634 which he drafted upon the request of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Cohen said the Bush administration endorses the passage of S. 1634 which is about to be released from the committee level.Its House counterpart, H.R. 3079, the Northern Mariana Islands Immigration, Security Labor Act, has a similar provision.Mendiola said the nonresident population which stands to benefit from the move will eventually exceed the number of local people.He said if the migrants are granted the nonimmigrant status, which will allow them to freely travel, work and study anywhere in the United States and its possessions, they may leave the islands.He estimated that 15,000 migrants may benefit from the proposed nonimmigrant status program and may bring their relatives to the islands.“Assuming 15,000 nonresident workers qualify for the nonimmigrant status under Section 6 of S. 1634 (60 percent of alien work permits issued in 2006), and assuming each of these qualified aliens has one spouse and two children, the CNMI would almost immediately see an increase in population of 45,000 additional aliens,” said Mendiola.“This would certainly put a tremendous burden on the CNMI’s already strained Public School System, public health system, public safety services, courts, and numerous other community services that the CNMI government is currently pressed to provide at this time,” he added.Although he sympathizes with the plight of long-term guest workers and agree that they should be given certain privileges, Mendiola said “I feel they should remain in the CNMI for a minimum amount of time.”“Moreover, I disagree that they should be given the right to bring their dependents to the CNMI to reap the benefits and resources of the CNMI and at the same time be able to leave when better circumstances materialize elsewhere,” he said.He urged Cohen to pave the way for more time to work on the federalization measures, adding that the Covenant of the CNMI and the U.S. calls for a partnership.“Unless I am mistaken, this partnership still exists. This whole scenario is beginning to take on the appearance of a court of law, where the U.S. Congress is the judge, the Department of the Interior and other federal agencies the prosecution, nonresident workers the victims, and the CNMI government and community, the defendants. What has happened to our partnership?” he asked.
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TAOTAO TANO HAD SPOKEN
- A direct impediment to the human right to self-determination
- 12808 st - Taotao Tano rebuts Pete A. in interview with KSPN 2 News
- TAOTAO TANO CNMI sents letters to the community
- 011608 st - SEND THEM HOME
- 011608 mv - Guest worker faces deportation
- 011608 mv - TAOTAO TANO SLAMS FEDERAL LABOR OMBUDSMAN
- 121407 mv - Trampled by foreigners
- 121407 mv - The despair of the indigenous people
- 121407 st - Familiarity breeds contempt
- 121407 st - 'Be selective on who to bring in'
- 121407 st - This land belongs to the indigenous
- 121407 st - To the people of Precinct 1
- 121407 mv - Think again
UPDATES by links
- 020808 mv - Fitial ready to testify in DC vs federalization, wage hike
- 020108 mv - US Senate panel OKs federalization bill
- HOUSE APPROVED 3079
- 121407 mv -Fitial says feds applying ‘socialism’ to NMI
- 120707 mv - Bingaman answers Fitial
- 120307 mv - US House may vote on NMI federalization
- 110607 mv - Cohen: Fitial administration ‘misinterpreted’ nonimmigrant provision
- 110207 mv -Guest workers brace for final version of federalization bill
- 110207 mv -Gov’t to recalculate numbers of migrants before year ends
Sunday, September 30, 2007
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OUR FALLEN HEROES
SAME THING WILL HAPPEN HERE - JUST CHANGE THE NUMBERS
JUST CHANGE THE NUMBERS TO CNMI NUMBERS AND
THE COHEN PLAN WILL HARM THE CNMI IN THE SAME WAY
CURRENT IMMIGRATION POLICIES WILL DAMAGE THE USA.
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