Intimidation by fear

The basic strength and validity of the Commonwealth’s suit against the federal government is the argument that a law of the land passed with limited application to a target political entity rather than being applicable to all States and territories, is unconstitutional.

The burden of proof that the limited application is discriminatory is, however, on the side of the protesting entity, the CNMI. I gather that that’s exactly what our Governor intends to do.

Now, we are hearing statements that since the regulations addressing residencies and visas for the CNMI has not been released yet, that we will not know how to operate until those regulations are released. Why can we not use the same argument against the selective federal imposition on labor and immigration apply similarly to the regulations, that there is no reason not to expect existing regulations applicable in other jurisdictions to apply in the CNMI. If the federal law says that a person who has made a sovereign US territory his legal domicile for five years, that he qualifies to apply for permanent residency, would we begrudge that on those who might qualify among us?

The recent statements from the White House regarding immigration reform focused on not separating families, and uniting members of the same family indicate the direction we would rather assume.

The statement foisted on CNMI permanent residents who do not have a U.S. visa, that they would not be allowed back to the Commonwealth should they be outside the territory when the federal laws become applicable, is not one that is attributable to a federal officer, the INS or Homeland Security. In fact, I saw it first articulated by CNMI’s top immigration officer.

Now, our Washington Representative is mouthing the same line. It is totally based on fear, or anticipation of a restrictive and retributive policy, which may be what local CNMI politicos want, but not federal laws, as far as I know.

So, why do we need to scare people who are already apprehensive about their immigration status to begin with, out of perceived limitations rather than from the perspective of what is possible, be scared some more? The land of the free and the home of the brave, after all, is a nation of immigrants. If we shift our stance so that we enable qualified residents rather than deselecting them with illusory compliance, we might actually recover our innate compassion, the generosity of the taotao tano, and the openness of the taotao tasi. If we focus on what we can rather than on what we cannot do, we can avoid recrimination where none is needed nor justified.

Right now, we look like an entity who, after we have used, abused, and overused our alien workers who have served us well and have been with us awhile, is ready to discard them like spent condoms!

I trust that we are a class higher than that. Or, are we?