Transcript
MARK RABAGO: There was a crackdown on illegal workers who come here as tourists when the federal bereau of investigation raided two offices of sub-contractors for the Imperial Pacific Resort. Also, they were protesting because they came here as tourists and they were required to pay as much as $10,000 USD in recruitment fees. On top of that, they were also assessed some other charges such as uniforms and other miscellaneous and they also are complaining about their living quarters, which is subhuman to say the least.
SELA JANE AHOLELEI: And so with the protesting, how crazy has it been?
MR: There's just so many violations on so many levels. This crisis or this issue came out when one of the workers died last month, I think early last month when he fell from the platform he was working on in Imperial Pacific Resort and during the investigation they found out that he wasn't a legal worker, he actually came in as a tourist. So not only is the protest giving a bad light on Imperial Pacific, although Imperial Pacific contends that it’s the contractors who are doing all these misdeeds, not them, they are washing their hands of this issue, the CNMI is also put in a bad light because the Chinese tourists come here using a parole authority and anytime the Department of Homeland Security can take that away they're allowed to abuse it. And what's happened here is you see like almost a thousand or more than a thousand parole violations since January. Try to re-examine this arrangement and put some safe guards for these tourists to not abuse the parole authority.
SJA: Has there been much push from the government to take action on what's happening there in the islands?
MR: There have been calls especially Governor Torres finally ended his silence and said that he's working with stakeholders, the airlines, the sub-contractors even Imperial Pacific to fix this problem. One of the contractors MCC International came out with a press release saying that they've already reached an agreement with US Labour to pay these tourists the amount of dollars and to fly them back to their home country before the weekends, so let's see if that comes into fruition.