US Justice Department Mocks Anti-Federalization Lawsuit

The U.S. Justice Department has moved to dismiss Governor Fitial's anti-federalization lawsuit against the Federal Government.

Justice cited several reasons why the case should be dismissed. For example, Justice asserted that only the CNMI Attorney General can bring such an action on behalf of the CNMI. This suit was filed without the involvement of the Attorney General, with Howard Willens listed as the CNMI's attorney.

Justice also noted that the damages the Governor claims will occur as a result of federalization are speculative, based largely on a GAO study that contains numerous disclaimers stating that the report has no predictive value whatsoever. As we all know, the CNMI's current economic troubles began quite some time ago, and federalization has not even gone into effect yet.

The Governor has asserted that he has no objection to the Federal Government taking control of CNMI immigration law, as clearly allowed by the Covenant. Fitial and Willens assert, however, that the new federalization law also takes control over CNMI labor law because it would impact the number of foreigners who could work in the CNMI. According to Justice, this argument makes no sense, and reflects a fundamental failure to understand U.S. immigration law: "Laws pertaining to whether aliens are authorized to be present in the United States and, if so, whether they are authorized to be employed in the U.S. labor markets, is exclusively the subject of federal immigration law," according to Justice. "U.S. immigration laws affect labor markets. That is one of their primary purposes, but it does not make them 'labor laws.'"

As others have pointed out, no community in the U.S. gets to decide how many foreign workers will be admitted to work in that community. That is controlled entirely by U.S. immigration law.

Clearly, the Justice Department is not impressed with Howard Willens' legal arguments. Might even opponents of federalization concede that this lawsuit is a waste of the CNMI's scarce fiscal resources?