Speech #1060031890

shares the American flag. but it does not share our immigration system. 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 Puerto Rico. or Hawaii. or Arizona. or Oklahoma could write their own immigration lawsand give work visas to foreignersour national immigration system would be in chaos. America is one country. We need a uniform immigration system. rather than one system for the 50 states and another system for one of our territories. There is a mountain of evidence proving just how bad the CNMI situation has become. Let me cite a few examples: 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 42.000a 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. A CNMI official testified that they have "no effective control" over immigration in their island. 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.