123
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES             H.R. NO.              
TWENTIETH LEGISLATURE, 2000                                
STATE OF HAWAII                                            
                                                             
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________


                     HOUSE  RESOLUTION

  REQUESTING THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO
    SPEEDILY PASS S. 1052 RELATING TO THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE
    NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS.



 1        WHEREAS, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
 2   of the United States (CNMI), consisting of the islands of
 3   Saipan, Tinian, and Rota, continues to be a place of grievous
 4   abuses and violations of human rights against approximately
 5   25,000 overseas Filipino contract workers, such as domestic
 6   helpers, waitresses, farm laborers, construction workers,
 7   entertainers, and teachers; and
 8   
 9        WHEREAS, there are hundreds of documented cases of rape,
10   forced prostitution, kidnapping, torture, assault and battery,
11   and violations of labor rights committed by employers and local
12   government officials who are largely of Chamorro ethnic
13   extraction; and
14   
15        WHEREAS, these Filipino employees are often cheated of
16   their wages and their passports are sometimes held by employers
17   to force them to remain; and
18   
19        WHEREAS, approximately 20,000 or more Chinese workers
20   labor under similar conditions in sweat-shop garment factories;
21   and
22   
23        WHEREAS, these Chinese workers are deprived of fundamental
24   rights such as the right to join unions and churches, and to
25   marry; and
26   
27        WHEREAS, new cases of abuses continue to occur at alarming
28   rates; and
29   
30        WHEREAS, these injustices are inflicted by employers and
31   government officials, notably the police, under a corrupt
32   system in which close family or political ties exist between
33   employers and local authorities; and
34   
35        WHEREAS, the indigenous population of the CNMI numbers
36   only approximately 18,000 individuals; and
37   

 
Page 2                                                     123
                                  H.R. NO.              
                                                        
                                                        

 
 1        WHEREAS, the combined Filipino and Chinese population is
 2   over 45,000 or at least two and a half times greater than the
 3   population of eligible voters of the CNMI; and
 4   
 5        WHEREAS, these CNMI garment factories ship products to the
 6   United States duty and quota free, yet these products are
 7   produced in violation of General Rule (3)(a)(IV) of the
 8   Harmonized tariff schedule of the United States, under
 9   condition rivaling those of the worst Asian sweat-shops; and
10   
11        WHEREAS, these imported garments offer substantial
12   competition to garments made by U.S. companies and workers
13   under applicable U.S. standards and labor laws; and
14   
15        WHEREAS, the local Office of the Attorney General is
16   generally unwilling to act to protect foreign workers or to
17   enforce labor laws, due to fears of employment repercussions
18   against the lawyers and in some cases to conflicts of interest;
19   and
20   
21        WHEREAS, federal authorities responding to complaints of
22   abuse by foreign workers have regularly encountered challenges
23   to their jurisdiction, hostility from tight-knit local
24   communities, and witnesses intimidated or otherwise induced not
25   to testify, prompting the authorities to compare their law
26   enforcement efforts in the CNMI to similar efforts in the old
27   deep South, and to comment that in the Northern Marianas the
28   "indigenous rights promoted by Washington have come to mean the
29   exploitations of Asians," and that "It's American policy gone
30   bad"; and
31   
32        WHEREAS, the CNMI has used its interim, temporary control
33   of its immigration law and wage law to develop an economy in
34   which over ninety per cent of its private sector workforce
35   consists of underpaid, ill-treated foreign workers; and
36   
37        WHEREAS, the CNMI has through its special immigration
38   laws, artificially deflated the price of labor in the private
39   sector, and made private sector employment undesirable to
40   indigenous workers; and
41   
42        WHEREAS, the unemployment rate among indigenous workers is
43   over three times higher than the mainland U.S. rate as a result
44   of dependence on foreign laborers; and
45   

 
 
Page 3                                                     123
                                  H.R. NO.              
                                                        
                                                        

 
 1        WHEREAS, the political and social conditions that have
 2   developed in the CNMI have come to resemble conditions in the
 3   Republic of South Africa prior to the end of apartheid,
 4   encouraging a racist psychology in the local indigenous
 5   population; and
 6   
 7        WHEREAS, even as the U.S. Senate passed a bill, S. 1052,
 8   to impose U.S. immigration law on the CNMI, the CNMI
 9   Legislature introduced a bill to lift the often ignored self-
10   imposed "cap" on new foreign laborers, showing a total lack of
11   good faith and good intentions; now, therefore,
12   
13        BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the
14   Twentieth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session
15   of 2000, that the Congress of the United States is respectfully
16   requested to speedily pass S. 1052 to bring U.S. immigration
17   law to what is, in fact, U.S. territory, the Commonwealth of
18   the Northern Mariana Islands of the United States; and
19   
20        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this
21   Resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States
22   Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of
23   Representatives, and to the members of Hawaii's congressional
24   delegation.
25 
26 
27 
28                         OFFERED BY:  ____________________________