Local senators approved a resolution yesterday calling on the U.S. Senate to postpone action on the CNMI immigration bill until a potential impact study is completed.

The resolution also requests the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to grant local officials additional opportunity to work with the committee on outstanding concerns about the bill.

House bill 3079, the bill that would impose federal immigration policy on the Commonwealth, is awaiting action in the U.S. Senate.

According to the local lawmakers, the proposed federal immigration system would have “far less flexibility to support the Commonwealth's continuing need for foreign national workers.”

“If H.R. 3079 is not scrutinized carefully and amended to address all major stakeholders' concerns, including that of the Commonwealth government, community and local businesses, utter disaster will surely befall the Commonwealth,” the senators stated in the resolution.

They asked the U.S. Senate to consider concerns of CNMI government and business leaders before acting on the bill. One such concern is the creation of an immigration board that would be made up of CNMI and federal government officials to review periodically the effectiveness of federal immigration policy in the Commonwealth.

The senators also said that a systematic study and report by the U.S. Governmental Accountability Office or other appropriate agency on the potential impact of the bill must be done before any final action is taken.

Senate Vice President Felix Mendiola sponsored the resolution. Sen. Maria T. Pangelinan was the only local Senate member to vote against it.

The CNMI immigration bill now awaits floor consideration by the Senate as part of Senate bill 2483, an omnibus bill made up of some 50 House-approved bills.

Title VII of the omnibus package, S. 2483, contains the exact text of H.R. 3079 as passed by the House on Dec. 12, 2007, and as approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last month.

The bill would extend immigration law to the Northern Marianas and create a federally run guest-worker program in the Commonwealth. It would also give the CNMI a delegate in the House with limited voting powers. Currently, all U.S. possessions except the CNMI have a delegate in Congress.

The Senate had planned on passing the omnibus bill this month. But passage was derailed after a senator proposed a controversial amendment to one of the bills included in the package.