US Senate OKs extension of E-2C, asylum bar, H visa cap exemption

The U.S. Senate passed by unanimous consent on Wednesday night (Thursday, CNMI time) a bill extending up to 2019 not only the CNMI-only investor visa program but also the islands’ exemptions from accepting asylum applicants and from the H visa cap. These policies would have expired in 2014.

It also extends the CW program, more than two weeks since U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez used his administrative power for such extension, allowing the CNMI continued access to some 10,000 foreign workers up to 2019.

S. 1237 or the Omnibus Territories Act now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives which, a few weeks ago, had one of its committees approved a standalone bill that also extends the same programs covered in S. 1237.

Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP), along with other territorial delegates, drafted and introduced the original omnibus territories bill, H.R. 2200, last year.

The companion bill, S. 1237, was introduced in the Senate at these territorial delegates’ request.

“This is very good news. …The bill has been on the ‘hotline’ for several weeks. Any one senator can stop the bill. So we have been watching very closely,” Sablan told Saipan Tribune in a phone interview.

James Han, one of the 261 holders of E-2C investor visas in the CNMI, said last night he hopes that at least one of the bills will become law before any of the CNMI-only investors’ visas expires.

E-2C is a CNMI-only foreign investor program that is set to expire after Dec. 31, 2014.

“Some businesses’ E-2C visas are already expiring in July and August. Will USCIS [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] still process their renewal? What if USCIS does not process right away? What will happen to their businesses? And will it also be up to Dec. 31, 2014? The government should do something fast,” Han told Saipan Tribune.

As of yesterday, there’s no telling when any of three bills extending these programs important to the CNMI will reach President Barack Obama’s desk for action.

4 policies

S. 1237 extends through 2019 four policies in the Consolidated Natural Resources Act, the U.S. law that placed CNMI immigration under federal control.

These four pertain to the 1) CW program, 2) the CNMI and Guam’s exemption from the national limit on the number of H visas, 3) extension of a foreign investor visa program originally created by the CNMI government, and 4) continuation of a bar on claims of political asylum in the CNMI.

Sablan, in a statement, said the U.S. Labor secretary’s use of his administrative power to extend the CW program “confirmed that there is strong justification for keeping the CW program in place for another five years.”

“But the other three policies can only continue if Congress acts. Now, the Senate has; so we have our work cut out in the House,” Sablan said.

The delegate also pointed out that the bill “tightens up rules for how funds are used to train U.S. workers in the Northern Marianas,” referring to the $150 CW fee that CNMI employers pay for every foreign worker they hire.

S. 1237 also contains nine other policy provisions that apply to some or all of the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marianas Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Sablan thanked U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Lisa Murkowski for introducing S. 1237 in the Senate last year, and to their staff, “who have been fielding questions and succeeded in getting the bill past the finish line [Wednesday] night.”

“I am also very grateful to Sen. Mary Landrieu, the new chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who recognized the importance of this bill to all the territories and kept it moving after she took over the Committee from Sen. Wyden.”

Asylum

Gov. Eloy S. Inos, like Sablan, has been requesting an extension beyond 2014 of the CNMI’s exemption from accepting asylum applications. They are particularly concerned that tourists from China that come here without U.S. visas could later apply for asylum, drawing concerns not only from the U.S. government but also the Chinese government.

Currently, China is a lucrative tourism market for the CNMI under the visa-waiver program since 2009.

The asylum exemption extension provision in S. 1237 may be important to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s decision to allow tourists from China to enter the Marianas, said Sablan.

“Chinese tourism has been growing very quickly over the last five years during which the U.S. controlled the borders,” Sablan said. He added that the bar on asylum may or may not be key to that growth “but the safest policy is to leave everything in place, no change in current law. It’s working; let’s not ‘fix’ it.”

The delegate also said S. 1237 addresses his concern that U.S. workers are not being trained quickly enough to take over jobs now held by CW workers.

“Employers pay $150 per year for each CW worker they hire; and that money goes into a training fund for U.S. workers—something like $1.5 million last year alone. I think employers—and more importantly the public—need to see how that money is being used. We need to see the results,” he said.

The language he drafted in S. 1237 requires the CNMI government to submit a plan of expenditure to the U.S. Labor Department each year. The plan has to say not just who gets the money and how it will be spent, but also how many U.S. workers are expected to get jobs after they receive their training.