Whose visa waiver?

Or, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Guam is looking forward to getting its share of Russian and Chinese tourists under the visa waiver program.

"Guam may be able to benefit from a similar program if the one in the CNMI proves successful, (Guam Delegate Madeleine) Bordallo and tourism officials have said," according to the Pacific Daily News.*

Uh, oh. Unfortunately for us, Guam's 'share' will probably be larger than ours. They've got the air connections and a lot more attractions. Hong Kong was just added to the list eligible for Guam waivers. It will be interesting to see how they do in that market.

Another uh, oh: "It will open up English language and educational tourism opportunities of longer duration, thereby expanding the mix and menu of teaching modules that have different time horizons," said Guam Visitors Bureau General Manager Gerry Perez.

Where have we heard this before?

Bordallo was lobbying Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano for Chinese and Russian to have Guam included in the 'parole' that was eventually approved for the Commonwealth. According to the article, she's still at it.

That may give the CNMI a very small window to get our act together before Guam is competing for the same tourists. Ah, but we've got casinos.

Well, casino. One, and it's not doing that well. A lot of plans, a few silver shovels getting scratched up in 'groundbreakings'. Don't get me wrong. I hope they work out on Tinian. I have the same hopes for Rota. I hope Saipan doesn't fall for that one.

Meanwhile, Rota leaders appear to be having second thoughts: Small-scale casino pushed on Rota.

Umm, do you mean a poker palace?


* I'd appreciate it if one of my two loyal readers lets me know when this link disappears and the article disappears into the vending-machine archives.

glass houses

To start, there is never, ever any excuse for throwing rocks at vehicles. It's criminal and it could be deadly.

With that out of the way, it would probably happen less if the rockthrowers-- and the people in the community who must have seen them in action-- thought they were getting something out of tourism.

I expect to get some statistics in response. They will probably be correct and I have no doubt of tourism's benefits. They just don't 'trickle down' directly to enough households.

Bumper cars

I fear those little white tour vans. The drivers are aggressive, unpredictable, oblivious of the law and dangerous. It's not my personality, but I've had to stop myself from chasing several of them around the island so I could.... do something (I have no idea what that would be).

Maybe they're not accountable either. There was a recent traffic case where the tour company tried to avoid liability by saying the driver was an 'independent contractor'. Isn't that more like, a taxi driver?

So yes, the tour companies have to clean up their act: a lot and quickly. Parents have to get control of their kids (or adults their inner kids). Most of all, neighborhoods are only safe if the residents are in control. Is anybody watching?

You might say I forgot to mention the police. No, I didn't.

Holes in the umbrella

Okay, Over 80 percent of guest workers to get umbrella permit, according to the Marianas Variety.

How about 'almost 20 percent of guest workers won't get umbrella permits', instead? That's a lot of slippage.

Some of those presently in the system may have already departed the Commonwealth, Deanne Siemer is supposed to have explained to the reporter. Well, that certainly makes me feel better. They're in control.

Somebody is. Siemer is described as "Labor’s part-time hearing officer" in this story; it's usually "volunteer legal adviser". Why is this part-time volunteer so often the 'spokesperson'? (It's not the newspapers' fault. Has anyone seen her business card to clear this up?)

It bothers me that the percentage is that high. Are one-in-five guest workers here illegally? Are they going to try to hang on illegally for a few more years? Maybe that many people have given up on trying to find work and just want to go home. And, yes, I'm sure some have already left.

Urban legend visas

Or maybe they're the people Jaime R. Vergara was talking about in his opinion piece Stragglers under the Commonwealth umbrella. It's a must-read for anyone in denial about the very large group of exploited workers.

Yes, they're "incredibly gullible", he says, "a docile population of foreigners exploited by their own kind, oblivious of any political rights, and reliant on fortune tellers and fast-buck schemes..."

They're about to pay for their mistakes, or pay later if they go back underground for awhile. A lucky few might find an advocate and take their exploiters down with them. The people who gamed the system will move on, looking for another scam. The people who created the system will try to rewrite history: 'Not Our Fault.'

I've still been hearing about 'tourist' and 'sponsor' schemes this year. It hasn't stopped. Vergara says "I saw copies of identical pleadings for a waiver addressed to no less than Labor’s celebrated volunteer asking that the waiver be granted to an overstaying tourist and a jobless consort so that they may be allowed time to seek other partners, apply for an Immediate Relative status, and qualify for the umbrella permit!"

According to Vergara, "Shanty dwellings with their ubiquitous satellite dishes house many aliens who expect the feds to start handing out urban legend visas come December." Sad, but I have to agree with him.

I was pulling up to YCO Hardware this morning and saw a flyer for a Black Friday Sale on Nov. 27. Wow, I thought, they really don't like the feds. Oops, the day after Thanksgiving is supposed to be the start of the Christmas shopping season. My bad, I hadn't seen anybody use it out here

The Northwest Pacific by North

I've read dozens of articles about last Tuesday's elections, and the CNMI results weren't mentioned in any of them.

That's not too surprising, I suppose, because of the national media's obsession with What It All Means to Democrats' and Republicans' chances in next year's mid-term elections. A local election involving the Republican and Covenant parties doesn't fit neatly into that narrative.

Google just fed me one exception, not news but a blog at the Center for Immigration Studies titled The Elections and Immigration Policy. David North describes the election results as "one apple, two oranges – and in the distant Western Pacific, a split coconut."

Who is this guy? I thought as I read along. He's obviously knowledgeable, very obviously opinionated and he's got some sort of grudge.' An example: "There was no Democratic candidate but there were two independent ones. These are both named Guerrero, as there seems to be a shortage of last names in the islands."

Hafa? What's that got to do with the subject? I read a previous blog, with the "Disclosure: I worked for the Clinton Administration's Department of the Interior territorial office at the height of the DeLay-Abramoff power." Oh, that David North. (There was a lot of press at the time. Some was harsher, some kinder and gentler, by the usual suspects for the usual reasons.)

It's too bad, if I could ignore the drone of axes being ground, I might agree with much of what he writes. That's tough to do.

The Center for Immigration Studies is popular with people interested in the subject. I have no idea how many of them follow his blog

They bombed in New London

Remember Suzette Kelo? She was one of the people who lost homes to a redevelopment project anchored by Pfizer Inc.

Well, the tax breaks ran out, and so did Pfizer.

The Supreme Court heard their eminent domain case about five years ago, and I remember it because it was one of those rare cases where there was public outrage across the political spectrum. 'Take the land for a road or school,' I thought at the time, 'but not to benefit a private company.'

Pfizer's research and development facility was touted as the 'anchor' of the project. It was supposed to draw hotels, condominiums, biotech office buildings, a marina, a walkway, a proposed Coast Guard Museum and public parking for the museum and the adjacent Fort Trumbull park.

From the stories I've seen, for their $78 million (or more than $80 million according to another article) they've got the parking lot. So much for the Little Pink Houses like Kelo's.

Heck, and I never thought I'd write this, Justice Clarence Thomas was right:

The Framers embodied that principle in the Constitution, allowing the government to take property not for “public necessity,” but instead for “public use.” Amdt. 5. Defying this understanding, the Court replaces the Public Use Clause with a “ ‘[P]ublic [P]urpose’ ” Clause, ante, at 9—10 (or perhaps the “Diverse and Always Evolving Needs of Society” Clause, ante, at 8 (capitalization added)), a restriction that is satisfied, the Court instructs, so long as the purpose is “legitimate” and the means “not irrational,” ante, at 17 (internal quotation marks omitted).

This deferential shift in phraseology enables the Court to hold, against all common sense, that a costly urban-renewal project whose stated purpose is a vague promise of new jobs and increased tax revenue, but which is also suspiciously agreeable to the Pfizer Corporation, is for a “public use.”

Thomas (or his clerk) was on a roll. He also said that eminent domain-fueled urban renewal often became a synonym for "negro removal".

Ah, well, nothing new. Big business teams up with government and the middle class loses.

I prefer Bloomsday *

Or, as Janis Joplin said more indelicately: "It's all the same fucking day, man."

Our gullibility is charming at times, and often funny. Enter, 2012, The Movie. I've been successfully ignoring it but finally succumbed to Burl Burlingame's debunking article Doomsday denied in the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

If you haven't been shopping for crystals lately, the Mayan calendar ends in 2012 (on our calendar). Presumably, so do we.

Was that story really necessary? Well, yes, apparently it was. Google it if you must, but there are as many references to 2012 as, uh, as there are stars you can see from our little planet. According to Burlingame, "the filmmakers have also created Web sites that pretend to be legitimately scientific, something that has real scientists somewhat annoyed."

I'd provide a couple of links, but that would just be driving traffic to those sites. My reasoning was similar when I decided not to write about Ben Stein's loopy Creationism catechisms; I stopped using the Drudge Report to follow news sources when I was reminded that I was enabling his looniness by building his numbers.

In a nice touch, one source refers to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which pretty much sums up my feelings: we're pretty insignificant, emphasize the small 'i'. Our calendars are constructs, like our languages and very much rooted to place. Our 'time' is tied to the earth's rotation period, which isn't fixed.

So I don't buy into specie-ific fixations on our little planet in a universe that is incomprehensible to us. Then again, we're tethered to it. If it goes, well, "so it goes".

Or, gee, maybe 2012 is when we finally enter the Age of Aquarius, though that sounds fishy to me.

* I happened to think of Ulysses, probably my favorite book, about 20 minutes before I found this article. Sigh, haven't read it in a century, though.

The Final Countdown

The gubernatorial election? Nah, I wrote a piece about that but, after a bit of reflection (and a second opinion), I decided to hold on to it for now.

The Administration and contract workers basically agree about federal immigration, and neither will be happy come Nov. 28.

Hard to believe, but when you cut through the chatter they both think that our current workforce is permanent, while the main thrust of the immigration provisions in Public Law 110-229 is to gradually eliminate permanent immigrant (a contradiction in terms) workers in the CNMI.

I'm sympathetic to that view, but not convinced.

I recently heard Rep. Heinz S. Hofschneider say 'development is not more auto shops along Beach Road', or words to that effect. I would go further. Development is also not more hotels if you don't have the local workforce to staff the existing hotels*.

Is the local labor force large enough for existing businesses? I think not, but I do know that there is substantial unemployment among resident and contract workers. If I were a cynic, I'd think someone is trying to keep wages low.

A lot of kids will be graduating in the next five years. It's time to pay more than lip service to preparing them for jobs in the economy. If (gasp) more than minimum wage is offered, some residents will return to the CNMI. It's hard to see how a 'soft landing' can be managed during the transition, but it can certainly be made softer.

A little sophistry, please

The Department of Homeland Security has been criticized for not soliciting comments and, almost in the next breath criticized because they're asking for suggestions on how best to manage drawing down the number of Commonwealth-only 'CW' workers. 'They don't have a plan.' Okay, what's your plan?

'How about a CNMI-only H-2 style visa?' former Chamber of Commerce President Jim Arenovski is is supposed to have asked. Well, the reporter caught it: H visas are for temporary workers. (The emphasis is mine.)

The Chamber is also supposed to have bemoaned the fact that no representative of the U.S. Department of Labor was there to explain the 'CW' visas. DHS has the authority and delegates determination of prevailing wages, eligibility and enforcement for most of the lettered visas to DOL. As far as I can tell, that does not include 'CW' visas, which makes sense because eligibility is based on CNMI labor permits.

Local control? Well, that might have been possible following U.S. laws if the suggestion had been made last year during the comment period on this final rule. It included the CNMI in the definition of U.S. effective on the date of DHS assuming immigration control and included this language:

Sec. 655.2 Territory of Guam.

Subpart A of this part does not apply to temporary employment in the Territory of Guam, and the Department of Labor (Department or DOL) does not certify to the USCIS of DHS the temporary employment of nonimmigrant foreign workers under H-2B visas, or enforce compliance with the provisions of the H-2B visa program provisions in the Territory of Guam. Pursuant to DHS regulations, 8 CFR 214.2(h)(6)(v) administration of the H-2B temporary labor certification program is performed by the Governor of Guam, or the Governor's designated representative.

Ah, temporary employment again. We're back to that. U.S. law will not allow us to have permanent immigrant workers after the transition period. The Congress can change that, DHS can't. The District Court in Washington, D.C. could delay implementation, but not change the law. I'm just a lowly layman, but I think the Governor is lucky we probably won't know the results of his lawsuit until after the runoff election.

Non-residents who have been here five, ten or even twenty years say it's unfair that they can't get a pathway to citizenship. I can't argue with that, but again it's up to the U.S. Congress. If enough residents and, particularly, their leaders join with them it could probably be accomplished.

I haven't talked to Greg Cruz, but I've met members of Taotao Tano. I may not always agree with them, but it's easy to understand their anger, their rage in some cases. This government has failed them, unless they get a shot at the brass ring: one of the disappearing government jobs. In cold, economic terms, it's often smarter to collect food stamps and other federal benefits than to work for the local minimum wage. You couldn't do much better if you were trying to create a permanent welfare underclass.

But at least you get those benefits, residents are told, you're U.S. citizens. Why does that remind me of what poor white sharecroppers were told in the antebellum South: 'at least you're not black.' Their anger, and that of others who aren't part of the group, is unfocused.

Sometimes it is aimed at past leaders, sometimes at businesses and sometimes at the contract workers. People with long memories might consider the Commonwealth Bank. It slipped through the door opened when the Bank of Saipan wangled weakened laws and regulations. A lot of people lost their savings. Contract workers came through a door; they were invited to work here. The small business owners who will be forced out eventually under U.S. foreign investment regulations were following existing regulations: a door. It's not their fault.

The Commonwealth was given local control so it could protect local workers and their culture. The result was massive numbers of factory workers who diluted the culture and strained the infrastructure. But the factory owners got greedy. Not only did they exploit their workers-- and I'm cynical enough to admit that might not have done it in itself-- but they grew too large and began threatening U.S. factories and jobs. Compounding their error, they delayed federalization through lobbying. When the political tide turned, and it always does, it was personal for a lot of Congressmen and Senators and not just political any more.

So we've got U.S. Immigration come Nov. 28, and it's not going away. If the 'CW' jobs are permanent, as the Administration, the Chamber and the contract workers seem to think, they'd better find a solution under U.S. law.

Guess what? The only realistic solution I can see is legislation, probably to offer U.S. citizenship. The next Governor is going to have to deal with reality instead of continuing this wishful thinking and foot-dragging. There is a five-year window of opportunity, though it is going to get smaller every year.

But what if the non-residents get citizenship and decide to go elsewhere? Well, I think the workers and Taotao Tano could live with that. They're really in this together, though they might not see that. Some workers would stay, no matter what. They've put down roots. Others would stay if they're given a little incentive. Here's a hint: offer more that the minimum wage. Think about it; there's still time. Tick, tick.

* Or do we? Hafa Adai Hotel lays off workers blares a headline in today's Marianas Variety. Several hotels have had some workers on 32 hour weeks for at least a couple of years now.