Hi Bret,

>I know it came up before, but what is the difference between a commonwealth and a territory?

I'm embarrassed to say that, not being a very political person, I don't really know all the differences . . . definitions I found are:

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Commonwealth

Used to refer to a self-governing, autonomous political unit voluntarily
associated with the United States, namely, the Northern Mariana Islands.


Territory

A subdivision of the United States that is not a state - an example is Guam.

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I know that the CNMI has it's own Customs and Immigration; in Guam Immigration is US. In addition, US minimum wage laws do not apply here (a major bone of contention, since we can hire foreign workers to work in garment factories, etc.). And, nicely, we are the recipeient of lots of US grant money!

J