03-02-07

Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It's that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.

It's been quite the busy week as we just had the visit from Allan Stayman, Josh Johnson and Steve Sander. Allan Stayman is a staffer for Senator Jeff Bingaman who chairs the Senate Energy Committee, which is the committee looking into reviving the U.S. takeover of our immigration system. Josh Johnson is hired by the Republicans and also works for the Senate Energy Committee, and Steve Sander is the legislative liaison for the Interior Department, he works for David Cohen. The 3 of them were out here on a fact-finding mission to see what people had to say about the impending federalization of our immigration system, and I believe to also see if things were really as bad out here as they had been told.

I had the opportunity to meet with them a few different times, and to interview them on my talk show Tuesday morning. I heard what their concerns are, and what they believe are the major concerns by their bosses and members of the Senate. One of the things I kept hearing from them was that we needed to have a consensus from everyone out here as to what our position was regarding immigration and the minimum wage. For them to even believe such a thing is possible makes me question their sincerity and sanity. You have contract workers here who think that since they have worked here for the past 5 years, they should now be entitled to U.S. citizenship. It simply is not realistic to think that you will ever get them on the same page with a politician who realizes that if the contract workers get citizenship and voting rights that they will then become the new voting majority and will replace every single politician we currently have. And by the way, I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing, getting rid of all current politicians I mean. But I'm just saying it's ridiculous to think that you will ever get everyone who lives here to agree on what the best course of action for the islands is. That is about as realistic as expecting Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. to agree on everything. Or expecting Al Queda to all the sudden agree with President Bush on everything.

I did get the feeling from time to time that they weren't nearly as interested in hearing what the true impact of such decisions might be as they were in justifying what they had already decided needed to be done. When it was pointed out that the U.S. was considering granting citizenship to all of it's illegal aliens, and yet they are lumping our contract workers into the same category, they said that such subtle differences are sometimes lost in the U.S. political debate. I had to fight from laughing at him on the air. They are admitting they have done such a terrible job at border control that they now have millions and millions of illegal aliens, and since they can't figure out what else to do with them or how to round them all up, they are just giving up and giving them all citizenship. That to me sounds like a completely failed system that hasn't worked in the past, and certainly isn't working now either. And how is it a subtle difference when one group all entered the country illegally, have not paid taxes and have been a drain on the infrastructure. And the other was brought in legally on contracts, they have all been given everything that was promised to them, and they agreed to the terms of the contract when they first accepted the job. One group is the result of lax border enforcement and illegal entry, and there are so many of them no one knows for sure how many there actually are. The other group we know exactly how many there are, and we know where they are.

For the U.S. politicians to point their fingers at us for allowing too many legal contract workers, when they have allowed millions and millions of illegal aliens to sneak across their borders seems like the epitome of hypocrisy. And let's be honest, the only reason they are considering giving our contract workers citizenship is because they are now forced to do something about their own illegal alien mess, and this way they can justify it saying they are doing it for the poor contract workers who have given years of their lives for jobs in a U.S. Commonwealth. They are totally ignoring the fact that these contract workers were given everything that was promised to them, and that they chose to come here to work, no one forced them. For those pushing for voting rights and citizenship in groups like Dekada, they may find soon find themselves on the other side of local legislation that will not only limit the amount of time they can stay here on a job, but will force them to return to their place of origin once their contract is up.

One of the issues that the federal government seems to be blatantly ignoring is that not only have our contract workers not been taken advantage of for the most part, but also that they have been given a better deal on the job than most locals. They have been given food allowances, housing, transportation, and had 100% of all their medical bills taken care of. I know of very few locals that have such a generous benefit package. In fact, our politicians have discriminated against our local workers by making them accept the same minimum wage as contract workers, yet without any of the additional benefits included. They will tell you that they have tried to fix this a couple times, but the bottom line is they've never done anything that fixed the situation for the local workers.

The cost of all these benefits is not cheap, and now we have David Cohen warning us to be careful of pulling back on the benefits if we all the sudden come under the U.S. minimum wage. Am I missing something here? Does that make any sense in any universe? Why should we have to continue paying all those additional benefits if we all the sudden have to start paying the federal minimum wage? Isn't that the purpose of paying the federal minimum wage, to balance the playing field? We're told that if we pull back on those benefits once a minimum wage increase kicks in it "might" be viewed as retaliatory by the U.S. Congress. Why would they think that? Do they really think that we should be held to a higher standard than what they hold themselves? If they honestly believe we should keep paying those benefits in addition to paying the federal minimum wage, I think I can say with authority that it would "definitely" be viewed by all businesses here as discriminatory.

I don't think you can find many people who would claim that we haven't made mistakes in the past, and that there aren't some things that still need to be addressed. With the exception of the garment industry, all business people I know say that an increase in the minimum wage is long overdue and they support it. Most of them would also tell you that over doubling the minimum wage at this point in our economy might not be feasible, so we need some kind of a wage review board, which would periodically study the economy and determine what an acceptable minimum wage really was. Much like what is currently enjoyed by American Samoa.

Once upon a time I believe our Immigration department was nothing more than a hotbed of corruption, and that's only 10-12 years ago. Back when there was the Ubongen recruiting scam, and he brought in over 190 Bangladeshi's for security jobs in the U.S. and then just abandoned them here, we had some real problems in our Labor and Immigration departments. But that has been over 10 years ago now, and honestly, it's been a long time since I've seen something like that slip through the cracks at Immigration.

The problem is, and the feds who were just out here will readily admit this, is that many people still view the CNMI the way we were 10-15 years ago with all the problems. That is no longer who we are, we haven't been that for a very long time, yet someone is going to a lot of time and trouble to make sure that is the only impression of us that gets any press. There is a continuing smear campaign against the CNMI dragging up old charges and stories, and we're reading about it in Washington newspapers and Ms. Magazine. Why do these publications really care about the CNMI, are we a regular topic for their readers? I believe certain politicians or staffers who have an agenda that includes the takeover of the CNMI's minimum wage and immigration feed these stories to these publications. It's the only thing that makes any sense really, especially considering the timing of the stories. They come out right before the issues come up for votes in Congress or the Senate. Somebody is playing dirty politics, and we're the pawn in their little game. If you are wondering who would stoop to such levels and do such underhanded things, I think there are several names that all come to the forefront, and honestly I don't have to name them, we all know who they are.

What bothers me is that the U.S. Congress and Senate seem willing to ignore the facts and to try holding us to a different standard than what they even hold themselves to. The fact of the matter is that we are very different from any other U.S. possession or territory. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have plenty of American tourists to keep their tourism alive and well. American Samoa is still given control of their minimum wage and immigration so that they don't lose their tuna industry. Guam has a huge military presence and it's economy it's boosted in large part by the military presence and spending. The CNMI has no American tourists; we're too far away and too expensive to get to, therefore we have to rely on Asian tourists. We don't have a tuna industry and we're quickly losing our garment industry. And we have no military presence or spending like Guam has. So since we have none of these other things going for us, the U.S. now wants to take away the only things that allow us to try and help ourselves? God help us because it sure doesn't seem like Uncle Sam is willing to.

I'm Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.