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DURING EXTENDED CW PROGRAM
‘CWs still have to go to zero’
While U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez has yet to make public his decision on a CW extension request, Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) said that once the program is extended beyond Dec. 31, 2014, the number of Commonwealth-only workers “will still have to go down each year until reaching zero in 2019.”
The number of CWs is capped at 14,000 for fiscal year 2014.
If the transitional CW program is not extended, the CNMI will lose immediate access to some 10,000 professional and skilled foreign workers, mostly from the Philippines and other Asian countries.
Even if the U.S. Labor secretary grants an extension of the CW program, the E2C investor visa program will still expire after Dec. 31, 2014, and the CNMI’s exemption from accepting asylum applications will still expire on Jan. 1, 2015, so Sablan introduced a standalone bill and worked on omnibus territorial bills to address the three issues, among other things.
The U.S. House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans, and Insular Areas will hold an April 29 hearing on Sablan’s H.R.4296, which extend the current immigration transition period in the CNMI from 2014 to 2019.
“We need the additional five years to train local workers to fill the jobs now held by approximately 9,600 foreign workers. During the extension the number of Commonwealth-only transitional workers will still have to go down each year until reaching zero in 2019,” Sablan said.
The delegate added that the transition extension also allows 261 foreign investors to continue in business until 2019 and maintains the existing exemption for the CNMI and Guam from the national cap on H visa holders. H visas are for foreign workers.
“Throughout the transition the NMI is also protected from asylum seekers, which has been important to our reviving tourism industry,” he said.
On a parallel track, the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has already filed a favorable report on S.1237, the Omnibus Territories Act, containing the same language as H.R.4296.
“The Senate could vote on its bill at any time,” Sablan said, adding that anyone wishing to submit testimony for the hearing on H.R.4296 may send it to kilili@mail.house.gov or to one of the local congressional offices.
Sablan said while the U.S. Labor secretary has already decided on the request to extend the CW program, there’s no telling when the public announcement would be and for how long the extension will be.
Whether any such extension will be for five years or less, the three pending bills in Congress would extend the CW program up to 2019 and there won’t be any further extensions.
It is expected that before 2019, a national immigration reform measure will already pass Congress.
