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‘Repatriating overstayers is Labor’s priority’
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Posted on Jan 05 2009
The Department of Labor is focusing on overstaying alien workers in the CNMI and working on their eventual repatriation, according to Labor Deputy Secretary Cinta Kaipat.
“The Labor Department has given a high priority to cleaning up the records with respect to foreign workers who are overstayers,” said Kaipat in her interim progress report on the implementation of the controversial Public Law 15-108—the new labor reform law.
Labor’s goal, Kaipat said, is to determine the exact number of overstayers, notify these people of their lack of status, and work with the Division of Immigration to get them repatriated.
“The Commonwealth has been burdened over the years with reports that there were as many as 8,000 to 10,000 overstayers. Those reports were vastly exaggerated,” she said in the report submitted to the Legislature.
Labor published last Dec. 1 a list containing names of 624 people who were allegedly overstaying for the years 2003 through 2007.
Labor’s published list for the first quarter of 2008 showed 25 alleged overstayers.
“We expect to publish the lists for the second and third quarters of 2008 very shortly,” Kaipat said.
In the same report, Kaipat stated that nine in 10 of overstaying aliens in the CNMI were hired over the past six years, when the local economy has been on a downturn and joblessness has gone rampant.
