HELENA -- Nonexistent federal controls over immigration on the U.S. territory of the Northern Marianas Islands has created fertile ground for "transnational gangs," drug smuggling and potential terrorism, a newly released U.S. Justice Department reports shows.

Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., voted against expanding federal controls over the territory's immigration and labor standards in a controversial 2001 vote that came after Burns received a $5,000 donation from a client of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Burns had previously not opposed an identical measure the year before. Democrats have criticized Burns for switching his position on the bill after accepting an Abramoff-directed campaign contribution.

Burns initially said the vote happened so long ago, he couldn't remember why he voted as he did. Later, Burns said he voted against the bill after reading government reports that showed expanding federal immigration control would hurt the islands' economy, which depends, in part, on non-citizen garment workers.

Burns has come under scrutiny for his ties to Abramoff. Burns received nearly $150,000 in Abramoff-related campaign donations, more than any other member of Congress. Burns has since returned the money.

The 34-page, 2002 Justice Department report, recently obtained by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., was posted Wednesday in its entirety on the left-of-center Web site, www.talkingpointsmemo.

com.

Miller announced Wednesday he is reintroducing a twice-defeated bill to extend federal controls over the territory's labor and immigration rules.

Abramoff is now at the center of a Justice Department influence-peddling investigation involving members of Congress.

The government of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands and the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association paid Abramoff's firm $2.3 million in 2001 and 2002, lobby records show. Abramoff was hired specifically to defeat efforts to control the islands' immigration and labor rules.

Although completed in 2002, a year after Burns' cast his controversial vote, the report was never released. Miller has maintained Abramoff worked to stifle the report's publication.

The document paints a grim picture of the U.S. territory, where non-citizen workers outnumber citizens and up to 60 percent of the "alien work force have tested positive for tuberculosis and blood borne pathogen diseases," including HIV, hepatitis, malaria and syphilis.

Local government is corrupt, the report continues, with politics controlled by "a few well-placed families and wealthy business people." Although the Marianas Islands are technically U.S. soil, clothes manufactured there can be imported with "Made in the U.S.A." label. Local government sets its own labor rules, including immigration rules and a minimum wage that's lower than in the United States.

The report lists the lack of federal oversight on the islands as its No. 1 change needed to make the islands and U.S. employees working there -- safer.

It says the most common criminal activities on the islands as public corruption, the sale of methamphetamine and immigration crimes. The report also says that transnational gangs are present on the island.

The report further describes the islands and Guam, another U.S. territory in Pacific, as offering "a target-rich environment for terrorist activity."

The report states that terrorist groups finance their activities through the drug trade and said that both the "individuals and tools of terrorism" could be brought into the Northern Marianas Islands "at will."

The report also said that the knowledge of problems on the territories is not new.

"The existence and origins of these problems have been fully documented by federal offices over a long period of time and are a matter of public record," the report reads, "as are the failures of local governments to improve the situation."

Jason Klindt, a Burns spokesman, said the senator would "certainly take into account" the report when, and if, another Marianas Islands bill comes before the senator.

He said Burns voted the way he did with the best information available at the time, and noted that the report which was not released to Congress was not written until a year after Burns' vote.

He said Burns had "done his homework," by reading the federal reports examining how increased federal oversight would affect the territory's economy.

"Votes are always made on the best information that you have at the time," Klindt said. "He cast his vote on what he thought was the best way."

State Senate President Jon Tester, the Democratic nominee facing off against Burns, said he found it "interesting and unfortunate" that Burns is now making a campaign issue out of Mexican immigration when five years earlier, the senator voted against having any federal oversight at the U.S. border on the Marianas Islands.

"We need to stiffen up our border security," Tester said. "Burns' relationship with Abramoff really stopped that from happening a few years back. Once you get in the Marianas, it's much easier to get in the United States."

Tester earlier would not say how he would have voted on a recent measure to give what critics call "amnesty" to illegal immigrants now living in the United States.