Based in Upstate New York on Lake Erie, Deanne Siemer has a background as an attorney and maintains a 250-acre sustainable farm with her husband. In a past role as a hearing officer with the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Deanne Siemer handled a vast backlog of labor violation cases. She managed an umbrella permit program facilitating 20,000 foreign worker permits for a federalization process.
A US territory in the Pacific, CNMI has a tourism-focused economy that was deeply impacted by the pandemic, resulting in travel restrictions. One critical aspect of the employment landscape is wages.
As described in a 2022 report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), under a 1976 Covenant, CNMI was exempt from certain US immigration and federal minimum wage provisions. In 2007 a phase-in period began for a federally mandated minimum wage. Two years later the US government took control of immigration law and did away with the foreign worker permit system.
From 2014 to 2018, the ratio of US to foreign workers remained steady at nearly 50 percent, indicating both categories' importance to the CNMI economy. At the same time, progress was made in raising earnings for lower-wage workers. Between 2019 and 2021, the number of employees reported receiving $8 per hour or less declined by 68 percent.
