Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) is convinced the White House will positively respond to Gov. Eloy S. Inos\u2019 request for consultations with President Barack Obama on the expiring foreign worker program, but concedes that eventual legislation to keep these much needed third country national workers in the CNMI is unclear right now as the U.S. House of Representatives undergoes a messy and contentious fight for new leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need a voice and we need workers,\u201d Sablan told reporters after meeting with Inos, Lt. Gov. Ralph Torres, and other administration official yesterday. \u201cWe need third country national workers. \u2026I would [like] to see a different program instead of this cap [on workers],\u201d noting that this program would be something similar to the H-visa class.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have been nice if there had been no opposition in the past to my legislation, so that we would have by now a certain number of third country nationals who were at one-time\u201d contract workers, to have \u201cat least a Northern Marianas status where they don\u2019t have to do this annual applications and have to get advance parole to visit their family and come back,\u201d Sablan.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut of course that is the past; we are talking about the present,\u201d Sablan said. \u201cI would like to see and to help the governor where I can and his special representative whoever may that be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sablan was echoing plans the administration has discussed heading into consultations with the White House, once this is given the green light.<\/p>\n
Inos sent last week a letter to Obama requesting direct consultation on issues like the expiring contract worker program, whose expiration in 2019 would potentially zero out the 14,000 non-U.S. citizen workers who live and work in the CNMI and contribute to its economy.<\/p>\n
Saipan Tribune has gathered that administration officials have been discussing strategies, even before the letter to Obama was sent, on working toward a work visa that would not be transitory and would be a separate visa class of sorts for the Commonwealth. Consultation with the White House, if approved, and eventual legislation would be a matter of case building, compiling data, and illuminating the needs of the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to have to wait to see what [Inos has] negotiated,\u201d Sablan said when asked about what kind of legislation could be passed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut as you know,\u201d he added, \u201cthe mood in Congress right now is, unfortunately, very dim, as you can see just from the competition or lack of competition for the job of [House] speaker.\u201d He called this \u201cunfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sablan was referring to House Speaker John Boehner\u2019s announced resignation and the contentious battle among Republicans in the House as to who will be the next speaker.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime is being wasted,\u201d Sablan said, noting that a group in the House wants candidates for speaker to make promises that they know are impossible to keep.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to put everything through regular order,\u201d Sablan said, referring to boisterous members of the House like the \u201cFreedom Caucus.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Congress there are legislation put up under \u2018suspension of the rules\u2019 because if you do regular order all the time, you will never get anything done,\u201d he said. \u201cEven legislation, for example, that has passed the House three or four times\u2014some legislation has done that and goes to the Senate and never gets acted on. So if you are going to put regular order on those legislation, that means you are going to have to start again, conduct a hearing\u2026go through time to debate on the floor\u2014it just makes it more tedious and complicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome members want a debt reduction promise, \u2026to make drastic cuts so that there will be no increases for anything, there will be no funding for existing programs. But that is money already committed, already spent. If you don\u2019t raise the debt limit, that means the federal government cannot borrow money and then we cannot pay our bills. So, it\u2019s very messy, it\u2019s contentious,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n
When asked how legislation regarding contract workers will be passed, Sablan said, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why this 902 negotiation is very important,\u201d he added. \u201cYou have to get it done right because once you negotiate, it\u2019s going to require legislation\u2026I don\u2019t know how to get it done. We have to see the end product\u201d of negotiations, he said.<\/p>\n
Responding to the call of Esther Kia\u2019ana, the U.S. Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas, for \u201chard numbers\u201d or data to present to Congress to explain the Commonwealth\u2019s dire need for workers, Sablan acknowledged that the CNMI does need those numbers but noted that the key number is \u201c218 [votes] in the House and 60 in the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the key number,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) is convinced the White House will positively respond to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,118,4997,4322],"class_list":["post-212598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-cw","tag-esther-kia","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}