‘The devil is in the details’

Scores of unanswered questions remain surrounding the prospective impact of the federal government’s pending takeover of local immigration rules and local fears over its economic consequences could take a backseat to the Department of Homeland Security’s agenda as it crafts the new regulations, Guam attorney Ladd Baumann told the Saipan Chamber of Commerce in a conference Friday.

The so-called “federalization” law President Bush signed earlier this year is silent on issues like how it will handle the immigrant family members of American citizens, the rights of foreign workers to travel within the United States and the mandatory minimum wage employers will have to pay visa holders, Baumann said before a packed meeting at the Pacific Islands Club. And in spite of recent talks on the rules local officials held with DHS, he added, the agency likely has its own ideas of how to answer those questions.

“The devil is in the details,” Baumann said. “It’s not so much what the law says as what the regulations say.”

Post-911 security concerns, Baumann noted, are a much higher priority for DHS than the economic fallout of federalization, a factor that heightens the uncertainty the local business community is facing.

“DHS is basically focused on enforcement and I suspect the regulations will reflect that focus,” said Baumann. “The economic interests of the CNMI—if that is on their list of priorities—it’s at the bottom of the list. They’re more interested in the enforcement side than the economic side”

Chief among the questions local business owners want answered is how the new rules will deal with minimum wage requirements. Federal minimum wage standards for foreign workers would significantly increase their pay, Baumann noted, a prospect that drew gasps from some in the crowd.

In a July 22 letter to DHS officials, Baumann highlighted this concern, saying the issue is closely tied to rules on H visas, the primary visa for foreign workers. A major wage disparity between Guam and the CNMI could drive many visa holders to leave the Commonwealth in search of better pay, he noted.

“If the H visa is portable between the CNMI and Guam, then self-interest will mean that many workers having been recruited to work in the CNMI will transfer to Guam as soon as possible,” Baumann writes. “Since Guam will have a labor shortage for the next few years, the competition for labor will in effect make the H visa of little use in the CNMI to hire and retain workers.”

Chamber president James Arenovski said the issues Baumann detailed in the workshop underscore the concerns local business leaders have.

“It reinforces what we’ve known all along, which is that there’s lots of uncertainty,” Arenovski said. “We really need to be waiting until November to see what’s going to be happening. The chamber is working on getting some questions out to DHS later and right now that’s all we can do.”