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Kaipat: Labor has system to keep projects going
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Posted on May 25 2008
Labor Deputy Secretary Cinta M. Kaipat said the department has a workable system to ensure that there will be sufficient alien workers in the CNMI to keep major projects going.
Kaipat said that Labor put together emergency regulations with respect to the implementation of the cap on foreign national workers present in the Commonwealth on the day when President Bush signed the legislation extending federal control to local immigration.
Labor’s emergency regulations were published twice in the newspapers and recently appeared in the Commonwealth Register.
“We believe we have a workable system that will ensure sufficient ‘slots’ so that all our major projects can bring in enough workers to keep everything moving along on schedule,” said Kaipat in her interim progress report on the implementation of Public Law 15-108 or the new labor reform law.
The former lawmaker said that Labor consulted with the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands, lawyers representing alien workers, the field representative of the Interior Department, and anyone else who asked for a copy of the draft of the emergency regulations.
“Most comments were thoughtful suggestions for minor improvements which we incorporated,” Kaipat pointed out.
Shortly before Bush signed the federalization bill, Labor drafted the emergency regulations that will effectively cap the number of alien workers in the Commonwealth.
The goal and objective of the emergency regulations is to “require that the number of alien workers in the Commonwealth on the effective date of these regulations not be exceeded during the period of 12 to 18 months after the effective date of these regulations.”
According to the draft, this would be achieved by implementing a system for monitoring departing alien workers present in the CNMI as well as arriving alien workers on the regulations’ effective date, “so that the Commonwealth can ensure that the number of alien workers present in the Commonwealth on the effective date of these regulations not be exceeded.”
