CNMI: A "Successful" Guest-Worker Program?
Posted by Matt Ortega on April 8, 2008 at 02:45 PM
GOP Senatorial candidate Bob Schaffer was touting his support for a guest-worker program while discussing his views on immigration. However, you will never guess the specific guest-worker program he pointed to:
He pointed to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. protectorate that imports tens of thousands of foreign textile workers, as a successful model for a guest-worker program that could be adapted nationally.
"The concept of prequalifying foreign workers in their home country under private-sector management is a system that works very well in one place in America," he said of the islands' program. "I think members of Congress ought to be looking at that model and be considering it as a possible basis for a nationwide program."
One of the clients represented by convicted briber and former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff was a wealthy businessman, Willie Tan, in the garment industry on the island and U.S. commonwealth, Northern Marianas Islands, or CNMI.
Attempting to prevent Congress from extending federal labor laws to the island, despite the fact that all products produced there included "Made in the U.S.A." on the label, Abramoff and allies like Ralph Reed summoned the help of Christian conservatives to thwart Congressional efforts.
It was on this island that some of the worst human rights abuses occurred under the legal jurisdiction of the United States. The U.S. Department of Interior, according to the Washington Post, "presented a very different picture of life for Chinese workers on the islands. An Interior report found that Chinese women were subject to forced abortions and that women and children were subject to forced prostitution in the local sex-tourism industry."
And Republican Bob Schaffer wants to expand this nationally?
(Hat tip: Square State)
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