INS recommendations on S.1052

President Clinton’s Administration yesterday pressed changes in S.1052 that will extend federal immigration laws to the Northern Marianas, including shortening the transition period to eight years and scrapping the judicial review proposed in the legislation.

Bo Cooper, general counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the amendments are necessary to immediately implement reforms in the Commonwealth’s immigration system and avoid further delay.

In particular, he questioned the need to give the U.S. Attorney General sole discretion to determine minimum standards from which to base the justification of the federal takeover of local immigration.

This determination would be subject to judicial review under a provision in the bill that will allow the CNMI to contest the findings in courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Cooper said this could lead to years of unwarranted delay and uncertainty in the implementation of the proposed law, noting the CNMI’s firm opposition against the legislation.

He called on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which is reviewing the bill, to resolve this issue based on the CNMI’s track record on its handling of labor and immigration on the island over the last decade.

These “unnecessary and counterproductive preliminary requirements to promulgate standards and findings… that would allow the CNMI government to use litigation as a tactic to delay even further long overdue reforms and potentially could lead to a court second-guessing and overturning national immigration policy decisions,” Cooper said.

The INS official made the statement in his testimony during the hearing held Tuesday in Washington D.C. (Wednesday local time) which was also attended by CNMI officials, led by Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio.

Cooper also said shortening the transition from 10 to eight years would be reasonable, citing alleged failure by the island government to reform its labor and immigration since Washington raised its concerns in 1997.

“There has been a lapse of time during which there has not been serious progress,” he explained later in a telephone interview.

“In eight years, it seems to us was adequate time to phase in full requirements of the INA without undue disruption to the economic and others needs in the CNMI.”

In his 23-page testimony submitted to the panel, Cooper revived allegations of abuses and exploitation of alien workers that have been leveled against the CNMI by the Clinton Administration for the past two years.

“The CNMI has gone down the wrong road with respect to its immigration policy, and that policy must change,” he said.

Cooper also shrugged off efforts by Tenorio administration to reform the system, noting these are “largely cosmetic changes that address symptoms rather than the underlying problem.”

Responding to concerns raised last May by Chairman Frank Murkowski, he said INS would be prepared to enforce federal immigration laws on the island.

“The CNMI’s proximity to Guam would mean that INS operations in the two jurisdictions could complement each other, rather than the current situation in which the CNMI is a source of alien smuggling into Guam,” said Cooper.

Murkowski, in introducing the legislation he co-sponsored, cast doubts whether INS would have the capability in controlling immigration here as shown by the influx of illegal Chinese immigrants into the neighboring island.