‘Local, small businesses will benefit from CW1 cap increase’

It may be a temporary solution but House Resolution 339, if it becomes law, would still help ease the CNMI’s ongoing labor problems. This comes as the administration—along with Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) and the business sector—tries to lobby support in Washington, D.C. for changes that would assist the Commonwealth’s economic recovery.

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and the CNMI panel to the 902 talks—together with their federal counterparts—had suggested in their final report to increase the CNMI-Only Transitional Worker Nonimmigrant Visa program’s numerical cap and extend it for another 10 years while giving long-time guest workers improved status.

That’s why Sablan, while waiting for congressional leaders’ decision, re-introduced his Northern Mariana Islands Economic Expansion Act in the U.S. House of Representatives last month. He first introduced the bill, HR 6401, in the 114th Congress where it passed the House but got stuck in the Senate.

HR 339 again passed the House last week without objection and is now awaiting action in the Senate. If it passes the Senate, without amendments, it goes directly to President Donald J. Trump for his signature. It goes back to another round of deliberations in the House if the Senate makes some amendments.

HR 339 wants to add 2,002 slots to the CW1 numerical cap for fiscal year 2017 to bring it to 15,000. The numerical cap has already been reached in 2017. HR 339 is an act that aims to amend Public Law 94-241 with respect to the Northern Mariana Islands.

Sablan said increasing the numerical cap is important to the business sector, local and small businesses, which continue to employ foreign guest workers, especially to those who could no longer apply to renew the permits of their laborers.

“Our local businesses were squeezed out when the CW1 cap was reached last October by a rush of foreign construction workers, who should use unlimited H-2B visas, not the scarce CW permits,” said Sablan.

“My legislation will give those local businesses—and the Commonwealth Health Center, which is in the same predicament—an opportunity to keep their legacy employees, until they can be replaced with U.S. [eligible] workers,” he added.

HR 339 would also increase the education fee for each approved CW permit of a foreign worker from $150 to $200, with the funds going to training U.S. qualified workers. Construction workers getting their permits extended if it was first issued on Oct. 1, 2015, is another proposed amendment.