Unheard No More

For many, many years, decades even, Wendy Doromal has worked on behalf of those who have been, are still are being exploited in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). The CNMI is a US Protectorate and you would think under US laws to some extent. However, the reality has been very different.

Finally, just today, Wendy has been able to announce a victory of sorts as President Bush signed into law S. 2739, putting the immigration policies that fed the sweatshops in Saipan under US Law. The entire story is a bit complicated. Maybe a good way to get a feel for the effort that went into this would be to read her announcement of the signing of this legislation from her own blog, Unheard No More. Wendy give a lot of credit to many other people and claims little for herself though she was the inspiration that kept everyone going.

I have friends who were, no, still are in frequent contact with Wendy. I know the great respect that Dennis Greenia (referenced in her post) has for Wendy.

I mention this because there is a lot of work remaining to be done. While Wendy names those in Congress who worked for the rights of these indentured workers, she did not mention those who are still in Congress and who should be retired. That list begins spans the country: Bob Schaffer (R-CO) now running for the Senate in that state; Dan Young (R-AK) and under fire for a lot of corruption; John Doolittle (R-CA-04) still in Congress but not running for re-election, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA-46) - one of those who held up the CNMI as a crucible of capitalism to be emulated and a supporter of the CNMI's lobbyist, Jack Abramoff.

Doromal is not stopping work.

Now that the bill is signed, I will be carrying the petition from the guest workers to Washington, D.C. that requests green card status for the legal CNMI long-term guest workers. The guest workers have gotten over 5,000 signatures and are still working to get more.

We should not either. Everything that we can do to send Dana Rohrabacher back to the beach, to contemplate surfing, reefs and reefers, the better we will all be.

Abramoff is out, but the corruption remins

I want to give everyone a warning and ask a favor. One of the issues that we used to unseat Richard Pombo was his connection to the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). It often elicited a shrug, as if to say who cares about what happens half-way around the world. Maybe, if you read all of this, you might understand that we should care and that the corruption has not gone away just because Jack Abramoff has had his career cut short.

This was triggered today by a story in the Denver Post concerning a Colorado Congressman named Bob Schaffer. Shaffer has long been a suporter of all of the corruption in the CNMI.

One of the key elements of the CNMI scheme was that, as a Commonwealth, they were allowed to have their own immigration policy. This allowed the Governor Benigno R. Fitial of the CNMI to set up a program whereby private contractors and companies could sign up foreign workers and import them into the CNMI to work in industry. Most of these were women from China and the Philippines. Many were allowe to work long hours in sweatshops making clothing for the US Market (goods manufactured in the CNMI were allowed to say Made in the USA) and the rest were forced into prostitution. This established a loophole whereby anyone who had been admitted to the CNMI could not travel freely to the US mainland.

NOTE: Governor Fitial was previously an executive with one of the major offending companies.

What the good Mr. Schaffer wants is to use the CNMI as a model for our own "guest worker" program. You know, like the bracero programs of the past. The abuses of that program were bad enough in the US. They are horrible in the CNMI.

Now, I am not asking anyone here to work against Mr. Schaffer. I do, however, want to get all of you to contact their Senators and make sure that the support getting Senate Bill 2739 on to the calendar and passed. It may happen today. If not, then we know that behind the scenes schemes are preventing this bill from comint to a vote. The Marianas Islands issues in this bill are only a small part, but it is a very important part.