How the CNMI Government Brought Federalization Upon Itself

(This article was originally published in the March-April 2008 issue of MP Magazine under the title "The Issue of Federalization")

By David B. Cohen

“In a court of law, you can’t beat a station wagon filled with nuns.”

That line is from the classic television comedy series “All in the Family,” which featured a “lovable” bigot named Archie Bunker. In one episode, Archie is involved in an auto accident. He’s determined to sue the other party for as much money as he can get. He hires Sol Rabinowitz to be his lawyer, because Archie believes the stereotype that Jews make the best lawyers and “Sol Rabinowitz” is the most Jewish-sounding lawyer’s name he can find in the Yellow Pages. Archie is heartened to learn that the other party’s lawyer, Fitzroy, is not Jewish but Irish. When the parties meet, however, Fitzroy asserts that it was Archie who caused the accident and he has witnesses who will testify to that fact. “Who are these witnesses?” asks Rabinowitz.

“A station wagon filled with nuns,” replies Fitzroy.

At that point, Rabinowitz immediately quits the case, grabs his briefcase and heads for the door. Archie asks him why he’s quitting, and Rabinowitz replies with an “old Jewish saying”: “In a court of law, you can’t beat a station wagon filled with nuns.”

I was reminded of that episode when I heard of the recent verbal attacks in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) against the Catholic social service organization Karidat and Guma’ Esperansa, the women’s shelter that Karidat operates on Saipan. The critics of Karidat and Guma’ Esperansa have challenged the credibility not only of nuns, but of priests, the Catholic Church, Sisters of the Good Shepherd, social workers and human trafficking victims. They are all being attacked for speaking openly about the plight of human trafficking victims in the CNMI.

According to a recent letter by Greg Cruz, President of the indigenous rights group Taotao Tano, the advocacy of Guma’ Esperansa and others on behalf of human trafficking victims is part of a political conspiracy to win passage of legislation that would bring the CNMI’s immigration system under federal control. Is he correct? That depends on whether you believe the nuns, social workers and human trafficking victims, on the one hand, or the politicians and others who are criticizing them, on the other hand. Who do I believe? I believe Sol Rabinowitz. Getting into a credibility contest with nuns just isn’t worth it.

This is but one in a long line of examples of how some opponents of “federalization,” as it is known, may have undermined their own cause in their single-minded determination to defeat federalization. As I write this, a bill to federalize the CNMI’s immigration system is still being considered by Congress. Whether or not that bill passes, I’m concerned that some of the participants in the federalization debate are doing needless and lasting damage to an island community that I care very much about.

Let me be clear: I do not claim that federalization opponents are causing damage simply because they are opposed to federalization. Federalization is a complicated issue on which reasonable people can disagree. Reasonable, principled arguments can be made on both sides. I’ve struggled with it myself. My concern is that the way some advocates are manifesting their anti-federalization zeal may be damaging to the community and to their own objectives.

Almost everyone in the CNMI is familiar with the federalization issue. Under the Covenant through which the Northern Mariana Islands joined the United States as a Commonwealth in the 1970s, the CNMI was initially given control over its immigration system. However, Congress expressly reserved the right to put the CNMI’s immigration system under federal control at any time and in any manner. Although some have recently asserted that the Covenant’s concept of “self-government” limits Congress’s authority to control immigration in the CNMI, that is clearly a misinterpretation of the Covenant.

The Covenant negotiators from the Northern Marianas sought to initially control their own immigration system because they were afraid that the islands’ indigenous Chamorros and Carolinians would be overrun by foreigners that could be admitted under U.S. immigration law. Ironically, at the behest of foreign business owners, the CNMI would ultimately use its control over immigration to admit so many foreign guest workers that the locals became a minority in their own islands.

The importation of guest workers was driven largely by the garment industry, which eventually grew to generate annual revenues of over $1 billion and provide 35 percent of local tax revenues. As far back as the Reagan Administration, the Federal Government expressed concern about working conditions in the garment industry.

The Clinton Administration, responding to mounting evidence of garment industry labor abuses, launched an all-out effort to federalize the CNMI’s immigration system. The effort was spearheaded by the Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, which generally administers the Federal Government’s relationship with the CNMI and its other territories. Al Stayman was OIA’s Director at the time.

The CNMI government, with the support of the garment industry, fought the Clinton Administration’s federalization effort. They hired lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who in turn enlisted the support of his powerful friend in Congress, Majority Whip (and later Majority Leader) Tom DeLay. The battle over federalization became pitched, nasty and personal. In one newspaper interview, then-CNMI House Speaker Ben Fitial repeatedly referred to Danny Aranza, Stayman’s like-minded successor, as a “jerk” because of their difference of opinion over federalization.

In 2001, Republican Frank Murkowski’s bill to federalize the CNMI’s immigration system passed the U.S. Senate unanimously. The Bush Administration issued a letter expressing “strong support” for the bill. However, DeLay opposed the bill and it never came to a vote in the House.

By the time I took over the Office of Insular Affairs as Deputy Assistant Secretary in June 2002, things had thankfully calmed down. Fitial, backed by the garment industry that once employed him, lost to Juan Babauta in the 2001 gubernatorial race. Babauta was perceived as a reformer, and even some of the strongest proponents of federalization were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Meanwhile, the garment industry had made a great deal of progress in curbing labor abuse since the 1990s. Much of this was driven by reforms that the CNMI had enacted under pressure from the federalization proponents in Congress. During Babauta’s tenure, the Federal Government and the CNMI government worked very well together to address important immigration issues. We asked them to establish a refugee protection system. They did. We asked them to enact a tough statute to fight human trafficking. They did. We asked for their commitment to cooperate with our efforts to fight human smuggling. We received it—in writing.

Things were far from perfect in the CNMI, but they were much better than they had been and they were heading in the right direction. No one in Congress was seriously pushing federalization during this period.

When Ben Fitial was elected governor in 2005, some were concerned that he would try to undo the progress that had been made on labor and immigration issues. I, for one, was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. After I met with him early in his term, I believed that he understood that weakening worker protections would provoke a negative reaction from the Federal Government and would undermine his efforts to stimulate the economy. I very much shared Governor Fitial’s concern about the economy, and we developed a positive working relationship.

Fast forward to November 2006, when the Democrats took control of both houses of the U.S. Congress: Some of the strongest proponents of federalization, particularly Congressman George Miller and Senator Jeff Bingaman (for whom Al Stayman now worked), were now in a position to move that agenda forward. Unlike me, they were not willing to give the Fitial Administration the benefit of the doubt.

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, now chaired by Senator Bingaman, called a hearing in February 2007 on CNMI labor and immigration issues. I was called to testify on behalf of the Bush Administration, and essentially was going to have to answer the following question: “The Bush Administration expressed its strong support for federalization in 2001. Is that still your position?”

That was a complicated issue for me. When I say that the issue was complicated “for me,” a bit of clarification is in order. In one sense, my personal opinion didn’t matter because I was only authorized to testify on behalf of the Administration with testimony cleared by the Administration. However, it was my job to initially propose what I thought the Administration’s position should be, draft testimony to reflect that position, and then work to get that position and testimony cleared by my Department, the White House and all relevant departments and agencies. I wasn’t always able to get clearance for everything I proposed, but I had a very good success rate. In that sense, my personal opinion did matter, because it was the most important determinant of what the Administration position would ultimately be. For that reason, I always tried my best to be as fair and open-minded as possible in formulating the opinions that would become the basis for my recommendations to the Administration.

As we prepared for the hearing, there was much to consider. On the one hand, although many serious problems remained, the CNMI had made a great deal of progress in improving labor conditions and the administration of its immigration system. On the other hand, the nose-diving economy had caused a drastic reduction in government revenues in recent years, casting doubt on whether the CNMI had the resources to properly administer its immigration system and protect workers’ rights. With the CNMI’s two major industries, garments and tourism, in simultaneous decline, guest workers were losing their jobs in record numbers. This placed unprecedented demands on the CNMI’s labor and immigration system at precisely the time when the resources available to meet those demands were rapidly evaporating.

On the other hand, I was very concerned about the potential economic impact of federalizing immigration in a manner that was not sensitive to the CNMI’s unique needs. I also tended to believe, all things being equal, that local control was better for the islands than a one-size-fits-all approach dictated by a Federal Government based thousands of miles away. Of course, all things are seldom equal.

If you had put a gun to my head in the weeks prior to that hearing and asked me whether I personally favored federalization, I would have said “no.” It would have been a close call, because of my concerns about the CNMI’s ability to continue making progress on labor and immigration issues in the face of a dwindling revenue base. My “no” would have been premised upon the assumption that the CNMI would continue to work collaboratively with us to address these issues. As I will discuss, I would soon lose faith in that premise, which in turn would push me from a close “no” to an emphatic “yes” on the issue of federalization.

The testimony that I ultimately prepared for the February hearing did not take a position on federalization. Rather, we essentially said the following: “We’re not suggesting that you federalize or that you not federalize. If you do decide to federalize, however, we urge you to take certain things into account.” The things that we urged Congress to take into account were as follows:

Ensure that national security and homeland security issues are properly addressed.
Minimize damage to the CNMI economy and maximize the potential for future economic growth.
Ensure that the new CNMI economy is not as conducive to worker exploitation and abuse as was the old CNMI economy.
Ensure that the interests of the long-term guest workers are properly addressed.
Carefully analyze the likely impact of major proposals before they are implemented.
Ensure that the people of the CNMI participate fully in decisions that will affect their future.

On national security and homeland security, we made it clear that this consideration had to trump all others in a post-9/11 environment.

On the economy, my testimony stressed the need to flexibly tailor any federalization bill to the CNMI’s special needs. This would become the basis for what we would later call “Flexible Federalization.”

My testimony was frank about how the CNMI’s old economic model—which was clearly on its way out with the garment industry falling victim to new international trade rules—was conducive to worker exploitation. The CNMI had many workers who had been there for a long time—some for more than 20 years. The longer workers stay in the CNMI, the more rooted they become there and the more they have to lose if they are ever required to return home. Many have minor U.S. citizen children who had never lived in the third world economies that their parents came from. Since the workers’ contracts must generally be renewed each year, those with much to lose have a strong disincentive to stand up for their rights. The CNMI had become oddly out of balance, with guest workers having become a majority with no political rights.

My testimony paid special tribute to long-term guest workers, and recognized their tremendous contributions to the CNMI. One of the things that has saddened me about the current federalization debate is the way that some have scapegoated guest workers and pretended that their views don’t count.

I will reveal now that the first draft of my testimony urged Congress, if it were to proceed with federalization, to consider allowing long-term CNMI guest workers to apply for permanent residence—green cards—on a one-time basis. I believed that if the U.S. was considering allowing certain illegal immigrants to eventually get permanent residence, then we should also offer permanent residence to legal workers who had done so much to make this small American island community a better place. The green card proposal was the only significant point in my original draft that I was unable to get cleared. It was not that my colleagues in the Administration were hostile to the idea. With the debate on national immigration reform about to commence, however, there was concern that proposing green cards for a small group of people might have a disproportionate skewing impact on the national discussion. The decision was made to let the national debate move forward before giving further consideration to granting green cards to the CNMI’s long-term guest workers. At the end of the day, I agreed that this was the right decision.

Let me stress that I am very sensitive to the concern that many Chamorros and Carolinians have about losing political control over their islands. The objective of maintaining political control for particular ethnic groups is actually un-American, but this is a very important issue for islanders throughout the Pacific who fear the loss of their land and their culture. I know this very well because of my Samoan heritage. I believe that the U.S. intended to respect the concerns of the indigenous people in this regard when it negotiated the Covenant. I did not believe, however, that granting guest workers green cards would threaten indigenous political control over the islands. I believed that the economy would find its own equilibrium, and that the loss of jobs in the CNMI would motivate many long-term workers to move elsewhere in the U.S. to find opportunity. Especially given that non-indigenous people cannot own land in the CNMI, I did not believe that guest workers would stay in sufficient numbers to take political control.

Was there a risk that too many guest workers would leave once they got their green cards? Sure, but this risk was outweighed in my judgment by the need to economically empower the guest workers. As long as guest workers only have the option of staying in their current job or returning to a third world economy, they are exploitable. They are afraid to complain and willing to work for the lowest legal wage. They hence bargain down wages in the private sector, making U.S. citizens willing to work only in the public sector. The result is the type of two-tier economy that the CNMI has ended up with. Workers with green cards have more options, and hence more economic power, and hence are less likely to depress wages.

I would later think of an alternative way to economically empower the guest workers, one that should have given the locals less concern about the risk of losing political control. The idea was to allow long-term guest workers who passed background checks to obtain the same status in the U.S. as citizens of the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia. This status would allow these guest workers to live and work anywhere in the U.S. indefinitely as long as they didn’t do anything that made them deportable, such as committing a serious crime. It would not give the workers political rights, but they would remain eligible to obtain a green card in the normal ways—marriage, special qualifications, etc. Having the right to stay indefinitely, in fact, would increase for many guest workers the likelihood that they would eventually qualify for a green card one way or another.

I thought it was a good compromise. As most followers of CNMI politics know, not everyone shared my enthusiasm.

The fourth point that I raised in my testimony, that we should carefully analyze the likely impact of major proposals before they are implemented, has been largely misunderstood by opponents of federalization. These opponents assert that Congress should not pass federalization legislation until a comprehensive study is completed on whether or not to federalize the CNMI’s immigration system. The federalization bill being considered in Congress, however, offers a flexible framework that allows policymakers a great deal of latitude to adopt policies and regulations that address the CNMI’s particular needs. For example, the bill would allow the guest worker program to be extended indefinitely if necessary; it would establish a special visa waiver program for the CNMI and Guam; it would enable special new visa categories (for students or retirees, for example) to be established if appropriate. All of these decisions would be made by federal policymakers, with input from the CNMI government, after the law’s enactment. The bill directs federal policymakers to make these decisions in a manner that accommodates the CNMI’s unique needs and maximizes the CNMI’s opportunities for economic growth.

Congress has indeed requested the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study on federalization. That study, however, is not intended to help Congress determine whether or not federalization should occur; the Senators who requested that study had already concluded, for several valid reasons, that federalization should occur. Rather, the study is designed to guide the relevant policymakers in developing policies and regulations to implement federalization in a manner that will best serve the needs of the CNMI and of the nation as a whole. Ironically, although the CNMI administration has been urging Congress to postpone consideration of the federalization bill until the GAO study is completed, GAO officials initially were quite frustrated by their inability to obtain the information they needed from the local government. After word got out that GAO was considering writing to Congress about their inability to get sufficient information from the CNMI, the level of cooperation improved.

The final point of my testimony, that the people of the CNMI should participate fully in decisions that will affect their future, is a very important one. As we had in the past, the Administration urged Congress to grant the CNMI the same level of representation in the U.S. Congress enjoyed by all of the other territories and the District of Columbia. Opponents of federalization say that the CNMI should be granted a delegate before Congress votes on federalization. They are correct. However, Congress has made extensive efforts to collect the views of all segments of CNMI society. They have heard diverse points of view from a divided community. Governor Fitial has testified against federalization. Resident Representative Pete A. Tenorio has testified in favor of it. While I respect Governor Fitial’s views, I believe that Representative Tenorio has demonstrated exemplary political courage on this issue: even though a majority of the CNMI’s population favors federalization, much of that majority cannot vote.

Even though it would have been much preferable for the CNMI to have been granted a delegate to Congress prior to passing federalization legislation, I ultimately came to conclude that the need to pass both the delegate bill and the federalization bill as soon as possible outweighed the merits of passing them sequentially. The factors that drove me to that conclusion are discussed later.

When I arrived for the Senate hearing on the morning of February 8, 2007, the gallery was packed. The hearing had been much anticipated; people were staying up late back in the CNMI to watch the live feed. I was the first of many witnesses, but my testimony was not the highlight of the hearing.

That distinction belonged to Kayleen Entena, a young lady from Laguna Province in the Philippines who had come to Saipan to work as a waitress in 2005. In a barely audible voice, she told her heartbreaking story of how she was forced into prostitution. Kayleen ultimately was rescued and sought refuge at Guma’ Esperansa. She was accompanied to the hearing by Lauri Ogumoro, the shelter’s director, and Sister Mary Stella Mangona of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, both of whom also spoke eloquently about victims of human trafficking in the CNMI.

As compelling as the testimony from Ms. Entena, Ms. Ogumoro and Sister Stella was, the reaction of certain CNMI officials to that testimony probably did more to move my opinion than the testimony itself. As the ladies were testifying, certain members of the CNMI delegation were loudly sighing and rolling their eyes. Ms. Ogumoro had at one point cited the number of human trafficking victims that her shelter had recently served. A senior CNMI official accosted Ms. Ogumoro in the hall after the hearing and aggressively asked her what her “problem” was. This official claimed that Ms. Ogumoro’s numbers were wrong. My office subsequently verified that Ms. Ogumoro was indeed correct, and it was the CNMI government that was seemingly unaware of the scope of the problem under its area of responsibility. This incident reflected a tendency of federalization opponents to bully CNMI residents that did not agree with them.

I later learned that the Catholic Church on Saipan had been pressured to not let the ladies from Guma’ Esperansa travel to Washington to testify. That caused me tremendous concern.

I understand that the current CNMI administration opposes federalization—and not all of their arguments are unreasonable. I also understand that they desperately want to demonstrate that they are doing a good job at administering their immigration system, out of the fear that evidence to the contrary might be used against them by federalization proponents. That is not an excuse, however, for disrespecting a woman who suffered through what Kayleen Entena has suffered through, or trying to prevent her from telling her story. She has earned the right to tell her story. And Congress needs to know, as Ms. Ogumoro and Sister Stella informed them, that there are many Kayleen Entenas out there.

What’s ironic is that Kayleen Entena’s story is one story where the local CNMI authorities can take credit. Her case was investigated and successfully prosecuted by the local CNMI authorities. Federal Ombudsman Jim Benedetto, who has been demonized by federalization opponents, is the one that pointed that out to anyone who would listen. I’m the one that pointed that out in the press shortly after the hearing. Why didn’t the CNMI government point that out?

Here’s my theory: The current CNMI administration aggressively asserts that all criticism of the CNMI’s labor and immigration system is based upon “outdated information.” Consistent with that message, certain CNMI officials become indignant at the suggestion of any imperfection in the operation of their system. Perhaps some of these officials really believe that the CNMI is performing perfectly; perhaps others merely fear that the acknowledgement of any imperfection will be unfairly used against them.

Whatever is at the root of this mindset has led the current CNMI administration to put some unfortunate statements on the record. After I delivered testimony on behalf of the Bush Administration that suggested a high incidence of human trafficking in the CNMI, Governor Fitial’s advisers drafted an angry “supplemental statement” that purported to debunk the notion that human trafficking was a serious problem in the CNMI. They presented an “analysis” that supposedly demonstrated that the CNMI’s record of preventing human trafficking was actually better than the Federal Government’s record of preventing human trafficking.

The problem was that their analysis was completely wrong. Among other glaring errors, their analysis assumed that the CNMI had no human trafficking victims in a recent year other than the 36 female sex industry workers who were lucky enough to have been rescued and served by Guma’ Esperansa. These 36 women were a mere sample of victims in the CNMI—who knows how many victims have not been identified and rescued? Yet they compared this sample to the State Department’s estimated total for all human trafficking victims—including men, women and children trafficked for all purposes in all industries—in the U.S. On the basis of this completely inappropriate comparison (and other incorrect assumptions), they declared that they were doing a better job of preventing human trafficking than was the U.S.

The CNMI administration would have so much more credibility, and would earn so much more trust from the Federal Government, if they would simply acknowledge that serious problems still exist and pledge to work collaboratively with the Federal Government to build upon the substantial progress that has been made in recent years. I am not suggesting that the CNMI is doing nothing to prevent human trafficking. They need to do much more, but they have some recent victories which I have publicly applauded. However, how can we trust them to fully cooperate with us to address these problems if they are so intent on denying that these problems even exist anymore? And do they really think that anyone in Washington will believe that the situation is as rosy as they say it is, notwithstanding testimony to the contrary from nuns, social workers and human trafficking victims? Let me offer a corollary to Sol Rabinowitz’s rule: No one, and especially no politician (myself included), should ever pick a credibility fight with nuns, social workers and human trafficking victims. Even if the politicians are right (and the CNMI politicians are not right here), no one will believe them and they’ll only make themselves look bad. Ironically, it is the CNMI government’s fear of looking bad that is causing them to look bad.

It is possible to candidly acknowledge the problems that remain in the CNMI and still make a reasonable, principled case against federalization. Such candor would, in fact, enable the CNMI administration to argue its case with much greater credibility.

I believe that single-minded opposition to federalization had led to some tremendous missed opportunities. When my office drafted the federalization bill that Senator Daniel Akaka would eventually introduce, I ensured that it was loaded with special benefits for the CNMI that would help to secure the Commonwealth’s economic future. For example, our version of the bill would have made the CNMI permanently exempt from national limits on bringing skilled H-1 workers and other workers into the CNMI as long as local workers’ jobs were not being threatened. The Silicon Valley has been built on brilliant, creative, educated H-1 workers from around the world, but there is a tight cap on the number of H-1 workers that can enter the U.S. Making the CNMI permanently exempt from this cap could possibly have induced companies like Google and Microsoft to build a new Silicon Valley in the CNMI, providing locals with jobs, the opportunity to learn valuable skills and a chance at lasting prosperity. With no one from the CNMI supporting that proposal, Congress greatly scaled it back to a mere temporary exemption that has much less potential value to the CNMI than the provision we originally drafted.

The process of drafting the Senate’s version of the federalization bill helped me to overcome some of the concerns that I had about federalization. By drafting a bill that I believed to be very helpful to the CNMI, I was able to prove to myself (albeit not to everyone) that federalization could be designed in a manner that addressed those concerns in a manner that was as good for the CNMI as it was for America as a whole.

The CNMI administration’s fervent opposition to federalization has also led to a self-defeating antagonism towards the Federal Government. That antagonism only serves to solidify support in Washington for federalizing the CNMI immigration system. Like it or not, the Covenant leaves it up to the Feds to decide whether to assert control over the CNMI’s immigration system. That suggests that the Federal Government will only allow the CNMI to continue to control its own immigration as long as it trusts the CNMI to do the job properly—in a manner that will not threaten national security and homeland security, will not undermine the protection of human rights, and will not jeopardize U.S. compliance with its international treaty obligations.

The verbal attacks that the CNMI has launched recently against the Federal Government, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, and the Department of the Interior, have caused federal officials great concern. In addition to angry denials about the human trafficking problem, federal officials are concerned by the CNMI government’s unwillingness to work with them on refugee protection issues. That causes a real problem, because the Federal Government is responsible for ascertaining to the international community that the CNMI has a properly functioning refugee protection program. It is simply unacceptable for the CNMI to deny federal officials the ability to do that.

A recent series of angry letters from the CNMI to the Federal Government has caused some federal officials to think along the following lines: “You are essentially calling us the enemy. How, then, can we trust you to cooperate with us on the issues that are important to us, such as protecting national security and human rights? If you harbor such antagonism against us and are so concerned about the possibility that you might look bad, how can we trust you to share all of the information that we need from you to satisfy ourselves that you are administering your immigration system in an acceptable manner? If you refuse to share information with us on your refugee protection program, how can we fulfill our duty under our international treaties to ensure that you are administering that program properly? Even if you really believe that your antagonism against us is justified, doesn’t that very antagonism undermine the trust that we need to have in you in order to allow you to continue to control your own immigration system? If that trust is undermined, would continuing to allow you to control your own immigration system not expose us to unacceptable risk?” This is essentially the thought process that led me to conclude that CNMI immigration must be federalized as soon as possible. And, lo and behold, that became the position of the Bush Administration.

The CNMI administration’s recent undisciplined expressions of antagonism against federal officials, departments and agencies might give some people the short-term relief of venting their spleen, but it has done immeasurable long-term damage to the trust that absolutely must exist in order for local control over immigration to continue. I say that more in sorrow than in anger. The CNMI administration has been urged by some of its allies to tone down its antagonism. Even if it belatedly does so, however, the damage is already done. The CNMI administration’s petulance to date has forced us to contemplate how much damage some future uncooperative local government could do to important U.S. interests, and has reminded us why we generally do not allow small towns to control their own immigration. Based upon my experience with the CNMI, I now believe that American Samoa’s immigration system should be federalized as well—but in a flexible manner that would address that territory’s unique needs (including liberal access to citizens of independent Samoa), just as we have tried to address the CNMI’s unique needs.

Speaking of antagonism, some in the CNMI have interpreted the candid discussion of the CNMI’s labor and immigration issues as antagonism against the indigenous people of the CNMI. There are feelings such as: “They’re criticizing us. They’re making us look bad.”

During my community forum with Taotao Tano last October, someone in the crowd said to me: “You’ve got it wrong, Mr. Cohen. We’re not the ones who are causing all of these human trafficking problems. It’s the foreigners.”

While I generally do not think it is good to scapegoat foreigners, I went with his premise. I responded: “I never said that it was the Chamorros and Carolinians that caused these problems. But I will say that no one has a greater interest than you in making sure that these problems get cleaned up. It’s like the people from Beautify CNMI who pick up trash on the beach. They are not the ones that left the trash there. But they clean it up anyway, because these are their islands, this is their home, they have love and pride for this place and they have to live here. It’s the same thing with these human trafficking problems. Don’t complain that it’s making you look bad. Leaving other people’s trash on the beach will also make you look bad. In either case, you can make yourself look good by cleaning up the mess that someone else left in your home. On human trafficking, you can help clean up the mess by holding your elected officials accountable. Insist that they stop denying that there’s a problem. You didn’t make the mess, but if you don’t care enough to clean it up, who will?”

I find it so ironic that an indigenous rights group is defending a status quo that has so utterly failed them. Local control over immigration has allowed the indigenous people to become a minority in their own islands. It has caused an entire generation of locals to be priced out of the private sector, and to become almost completely dependent upon foreigners to do the real work that keeps their society afloat. It has caused locals to lose their self-reliance and their self-esteem. It has created an exodus of locals to the mainland to find decent-paying jobs—an exodus that threatens the indigenous culture in these islands more than a thousand green cards ever could. The CNMI is a community in desperate need of change, for the locals more than anyone.

For me, the federalization debate has never been about favoring the guest workers over the locals or the locals over the guest workers. Everyone is in the same boat. Giving long-term guest workers permanent status will increase their options, which in turn will increase their economic power, which in turn will reduce their tendency to bid down wages, which in turn will increase the likelihood that locals can find good private sector job opportunities at home, which in turn will reduce the exodus of locals from the islands, which in turn will allow the indigenous culture to flourish in these islands for years to come. It would be a win-win situation, and it could happen if everyone starts to realize that they are in the same boat and if everyone starts to row together.

It’s time to stop picking needless and futile fights—with Uncle Sam, with foreigners, or with station wagons filled with nuns. A brighter future is at hand for those who do not fear the future, for those who have the vision and courage to seize it.