Mr. President, I rise to call attention to a recent announcement by Bill Lann Lee, Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. The Justice Department announced the conviction of three individuals charged with luring women from China into slavery and forced prostitution in the Northern Mariana Islands. The three pled guilty in federal district court in Saipan.

The defendants pleaded guilty to extortion, transportation for illegal sexual activity, and conspiracy to violate the right of women to be free from involuntary servitude. I ask that a copy of the Justice Department announcement be printed in the Record following my remarks.

Regrettably, this is not the first incident of such behavior in the Northern Mariana Islands. As Bill Lann Lee said in announcing the pleas, "we have seen too many cases of modern day slavery."

Nor is it the first incident of sexual slavery in the Northern Mariana Islands. Indeed, slavery and prostitution are endemic to the islands' economy.

According to the Department of Interior's latest report on working conditions in the Commonwealth, "many workers are virtually prisoners, confined to their barracks during non-working hours." There are documented reports of female Chinese workers becoming pregnant and who are pressured to have abortions.

The grave situation in the Northern Marianas is captured by the headlines in the Department of Interior's report. Here are just a few: "Local Control Over Immigration Has Led to an Unhealthy, Pervasive Reliance Upon Indentured Alien Workers", "The CNMI Garment Industry Has Abused Current Trade Privileges to the Detriment of U.S. Workers," "U.S. Companies and U.S. Taxpayers," "Worker Exploitation in the Form of Recruitment Fraud," "Payless Paydays & Coerced Abortions, Ineffective Border Control" and "Smuggling of Aliens and Increased Criminal Activity." This is not a pleasant picture and it only gets worse.

In another report earlier this year, an undercover investigative team sponsored by the Global Survival Network detailed the sex trade and slavery in these once idyllic, Pacific islands.

According to their report, Trapped: Human Trafficking for Forced Labor in The Commonwealth of The Northern Mariana Islands, "many of the Chinese women working in clubs with local clientele, for example, said they had come to the CNMI ostensibly to work as waitresses, unaware that they would have to work in a nightclub and/or be forced into sexual slavery. These women had been trafficked into the CNMI specifically for sex work without their knowledge or consent."

Given this environment, is it any wonder that three people have pled guilty to forcing women into slavery and prostitution?

No. The wonder is that more people have not been so found. Hopefully this will change. As the Department of Justice notes, this prosecution was the result of a new effort to increase resources and oversight in the Commonwealth.

Fortunately, some American clothing retailers are beginning to react to sweatshop conditions in the Northern Marianas. Just the other day, five major retailers – Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Phillips-Van Heusen, Bryland L.P., and The Dress Barn – agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit about this deplorable working environment. The settlement with these businesses follows a similar settlement agreed to last June with Nordstrom, J. Crew, Cutter & Buck and Gymboree. Hopefully this marks a trend toward ending indentured servitude in the Commonwealth.

More needs to be done. The central cause of the slavery and prostitution on this American territory is the lack of any controls on immigration.

For my colleagues who may not be familiar with this U.S. territory, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is located 4,000 miles west of Hawaii. In 1975, the people of the CNMI voted for political union with the United States. Today the CNMI is a U.S. territory.

A 1976 covenant enacted by Congress gave U.S. citizenship to residents of the CNMI. However, the covenant exempted the Commonwealth from the Immigration and Nationality Act. As we now know, that omission was a grave error.

The Chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, Mr. Murkowski, and I have introduced legislation to correct fundamental immigration problems in the Commonwealth, such as the ones that led to the convictions obtained by the Justice Department. Earlier this week, the Energy Committee approved our CNMI reform bill. I hope that the full Senate will act on our legislation soon.

Our bill stands for the simple proposition that America is one country and we must abide by a single, uniform immigration law. Congress must terminate an immigration system that is fundamentally wrong and incorporate the CNMI under federal immigration law.

Common sense dictates that our country must have a single, national immigration system. If Puerto Rico, or Hawaii, or Oregon, or Washington could write their own immigration laws — and grant work visas to foreigners — the U.S. immigration system would be in chaos. That's exactly what is happening in the CNMI.

Over the past 20 years, the number of citizens in the Commonwealth doubled. During the same period, however, the population of alien workers exploded by 2,000 percent. Today, the CNMI has twice as many indentured laborers as citizens in its work force.

A decade ago, in response to a growing concern about the large number of guest workers employed in the CNMI, the Reagan Administration demanded change. Since then, the Bush and Clinton Administrations have repeatedly criticized CNMI immigration and demanded reform.

The Commonwealth is simply unable to control its borders. One CNMI official testified that they have "no effective control" over immigration.

The INS reports that the CNMI has no reliable records of aliens entering the Commonwealth, how long they remain, and when, if ever, they depart.

A bipartisan commission labeled the Commonwealth's immigration system "antithetical to American values."

It's not just the number of workers that prompt concern; alien workers in the CNMI serve as indentured laborers. In a civilized society, indentured servitude is immoral. The United States outlawed indenture over a century ago, but it continues today in the CNMI. The Commonwealth is becoming an international embarrassment for the United States. We have received complaints from the Phillippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh about immigration abuses and mistreatment of workers. Countries around the world watch — and wait — for Congress to act.

The CNMI system of indentured immigrant labor violates basic democratic principles. It's time for Congress to enact CNMI immigration reform.