The continuing debate on stay limit

For several years now, we’ve see-sawed on the length of stay of foreign workers solely premised on political correctness. In other words, politicians have superficially addressed–but never resolved–this issue based on a set of facts to determine its ultimate consequence against current and future investments here.

What must have prompted this legislation is the current OIA agenda for a federal takeover of immigration. Such view no longer seeks to strengthen what is good for the NMI, but an appeasement to the music being sung by OIA. At best, it is an appeasement measure, at worse, a reactionary legislation.

I have serious reservations that the issue of stay limitation is even an issue in the ongoing debate which we’ve treated as though we’re equipped with the requisite local labor force to fill every job in the private sector. Imagine, we can’t even find sufficient local nurses and teachers to fill both institutions. And we want to limit the stay of guest nurses and teachers? It’s asinine to brave an issue that only feeds a bruised ego dodging resolution of the more substantive nature of all the perceived problems with guest workers.

And so we’ve reacted by proposing residency limitations without addressing and resolving the concurrent need to accelerate development skills of the local work force. We’ve basically left this responsibility to the Northern Marianas College as we retreat to see how else could we politicize, well, the lack of proactive training programs to hone lifetime skills for local employees. This attitude is the basic drawback among politicians who offer half-cocked answers to a process that not only requires thorough research, but takes years diligent development and refinement.

In the midst of this obvious confusion, we seem to ignore a basic reality in every industry between here and the Eastern seaboard: lower rung employees will use their first or second jobs as a springboard to bounce around until they find satisfactory employment. It happens everyday, everywhere, therefore, all sectors must accept that such is the nature of entry level employment. This isn’t anything new at all.

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that we impose a constitutional mandate of a five year residency limitation. What would such mandate accomplish other than ruin the very measure being touted (Free Trade Zone) as the answer to more investments here? Has this measure been researched to determine its impact on an industry that may see drastic growth? You see, this matter requires more than just engaging in politically correct hot gastric air as to even ignore and permanently ruin opportunities for expansion of current investments and luring future investments. Our forte seemingly is one of “right not knowing what the left is doing”.

The issue goes beyond political correctness in that it has serious economic implications. I’ve asked for serious research so that it will give bureaucrats and politicians a clearer vision of the consequence of ill-conceived policies. Furthermore, it is in my view a serious mistake to turn a statutory issue into a constitutional matter. This issue is best disposed through normal legislative procedure that allows all concerns to partake in deliberative discussions. To dispose of it via the ballot method is to discourage healthy discussion upon which we can subsequently draw reasoned analysis from the views of the entire community.

Remember when more than 50 amendments were approved at a given general election and the disapproval of all amendments produced by the Third NMI Constitutional Convention? Let’s not repeat history in that we only display the obvious: political maturation hasn’t descended on these isles.