U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) joined Senator Frank H. Murkowski (R-AK) today in introducing a bipartisan reform bill to end immigration abuses in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The measure will be referred to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee which Senator Murkowski chairs.

"This is a bipartisan bill, and the changes we propose have the support of the Clinton Administration," Akaka said. "It responds to the profound problems we witnessed while visiting the CNMI."

Indentured workers in the CNMI manufacture "Made in the USA" garments for export to the United States. None of these goods are shipped to the U.S. on U.S.-flag ships because of an exemption from the Jones Act. The CNMI is a duty-free, quota-free zone in which foreign workers produce high value goods for Chinese and other foreign manufacturers at below minimum wage. "Guest workers" are also exploited in the sex trade, domestic service, and construction industries. They are trapped in a system where abuses are rampant and legal protections are few.

"The CNMI shares the American flag, but it does not share our immigration system," Akaka noted. "When the Commonwealth became a territory of the United States, we allowed them to write their own immigration laws. After twenty years of experience, we know that the CNMI immigration experiment has failed."

"Conditions in the CNMI prompt the question whether the United States should operate a unified system of immigration, or whether a U.S. territory should be allowed to establish laws in conflict with national immigration policy. Common sense tells us that a unified system is the only answer. If states or territories could write their own immigration laws -- and give work visas to foreigners -- our national immigration system would be in chaos."

There is an ample body of evidence detailing just how bad the CNMI situation has become:

• Twenty years ago, the CNMI had a population of 15,000 citizens and 2,000 alien workers. Today, the citizen population has increased to 28,000. Yet the alien worker population has mushroomed to 42,000 – a 2000 percent increase. Three to four thousand of these alien workers are illegal aliens.

• The Immigration and Naturalization Service reports that the CNMI has no reliable records of aliens who have entered the Commonwealth, how long they remain, and when, if ever, they depart.

• The bipartisan Commission on Immigration studied immigration and indentured labor in the CNMI. The Commission called it "antithetical to American values," and announced that no democratic society has an immigration policy like the CNMI. "The closest equivalent is Kuwait," the Commission found.

• The Department of Commerce found that the territory has become "a Chinese province" for garment production. The CNMI garment industry employs 15,000 Chinese workers, some of whom sign contracts that forbid participation in religious or political activities while on U.S. soil. China is exporting their workers, and their human rights policies, to the CNMI.

"The CNMI is becoming an international embarrassment to the United States," Akaka said. "We have received complaints from the Phillippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh about immigration abuses and the treatment of workers. Despite efforts by three Administrations to persuade the CNMI to correct these problems, the situation has only deteriorated.

"The Commonwealth is in Hawaii's backyard. I speak as a friend and neighbor when I say that conditions in the CNMI must change. The CNMI system of indentured immigrant labor is morally wrong, and violates basic democratic principles."