SAIPAN — Independent candidate for delegate Galvin Sablan Deleon Guerrero said the CW program has failed the Commonwealth and pledged to introduce legislation to overhaul it within his first 100 days in office if elected, speaking Wednesday on Good Morning Marianas.
Deleon Guerrero said proposed federal legislation to extend the CW program’s deadline and remove its touchback provision amounts to too little too late, faulting its introduction right before the August recess and a polarized election-season Congress. He said the program has failed to meet the needs of CNMI businesses, the local population and workers who have made the CNMI home.
“The CW program has really failed the Commonwealth,” he said, adding he would introduce a bill that would “essentially hit the reset button” and develop a program more realistic about workforce needs and more humane toward long-term workers.
He said the program’s arbitrary caps were designed from the start to lower the foreign worker population, and that Government Accountability Office studies have repeatedly found the CNMI will continue to need a foreign workforce. Deleon Guerrero said investing in local workers and maintaining a reliable foreign workforce are not mutually exclusive, and tied the issue to bringing back the CNMI diaspora.
Asked what he is hearing most from voters, he said residents tell him costs are too high and opportunities too few. “People don’t want a handout, they want a hand up,” he said.
Deleon Guerrero said he would fight for a seat on the House Agriculture Committee, saying CNMI farmers are excluded from USDA subsidies available to mainland farmers and that the next farm bill is an opportunity to change that. With the CNMI importing 90 percent of its food, he said supporting local farmers and fishermen would cut food costs and address food security.
On the military buildup, he said the CNMI has not done enough to leverage construction into local jobs, local business contracts and infrastructure investment, echoing comments Tinian Mayor Edwin Aldan made at a recent Saipan Chamber of Commerce economic forum. He also pointed to economic diversification opportunities including digital nomads, back-office services and support for small businesses.
