{"id":9575,"date":"2011-12-23T03:38:54","date_gmt":"2011-12-23T03:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=9575"},"modified":"2011-12-23T03:38:54","modified_gmt":"2011-12-23T03:38:54","slug":"huge-boom-in-sponsorship-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/huge-boom-in-sponsorship-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge boom in ‘sponsorship industry’"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Clarissa David
\nReporter<\/div>\n

The processing of Commonwealth-only status for foreign workers has given rise to a huge boom in a \u201csponsorship industry\u201d where workers pay their own fees for employment services without a promise of a job-a situation that has been happening long before the federal government took over the islands’ immigration system, according to immigration lawyer Maya Kara.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the feds are paying attention to it. How much attention they are going to pay to it, how much enforcement efforts they’re going to throw in that direction remains to be seen. I hope they do because some of the things that we’ve seen going on are really ugly,\u201d said Kara yesterday.<\/p>\n

Kara and husband Bruce L. Mailman were among the presenters at the conference sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management – NMI Chapter, dubbed \u201cHR: Navigating through Change\u201d held at the Pacific Islands Club Charley’s Cabaret.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Kara believes that her perception is \u201ca fairly reliable one,\u201d having served the local government for 17 of her 23 years on Saipan. She served in different capacities, including as a former attorney general and a hearing officer at the Department of Labor.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a hearing officer, I saw sponsorship schemes day in and day out.it was just real apparent to me, how much of it was going on,\u201d said Kara.<\/p>\n

Kara described the enforcement of labor laws in the Commonwealth before federalization as \u201cso lax,\u201d where no one bothered with foreign workers who did not have permits. \u201cThat’s probably how we ended up with this large, unemployed foreign population.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the \u201cCW crunch\u201d and the late release of the parole-in-place option for these undocumented foreign workers, Kara said they had to scramble for a status and those who did not have any other option resorted to being processed by newly formed businesses that require workers to pay for the fees before they are applied for a CW status.<\/p>\n

Kara said unemployed foreign workers \u201care being exploited mercilessly\u201d through sponsorship schemes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I’m angry about sponsorship is that it’s a matter of preying on the most vulnerable segment of society for pure financial motive,\u201d she told Saipan Tribune. \u201cRip off the people who are desperate, basically. To me, that’s just wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many had hoped that the sponsorship industry will go away with the federal takeover, Kara emphasized that \u201cit’s alive and well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m hoping USCIS will weed it out but it’s going to take them awhile because these adjudicators are in California and they don’t really understand the CNMI reality,\u201d said Kara, adding that she believes they will \u201cgo pretty easy\u201d and \u201clenient\u201d on CW applications on the first year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Clarissa David Reporter The processing of Commonwealth-only status for foreign workers has given rise…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9575","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}