‘Hard to justify big spending to process 11K CW petitions’

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Honolulu district director David Gulick said yesterday that approval of Commonwealth-only worker petitions for over 11,000 foreign workers has been delayed mainly because of the sheer number of biometrics that need to be collected, and the difficulty of justifying spending more government resources for the CNMI when there is only a self-imposed deadline to process all these. Besides, despite the delay, foreign workers being petitioned are able to continue their legal stay in the CNMI.

For weeks, employers and foreign workers have been asking why it has taken this long to process CW petitions.

The CNMI, however, would see the rate of CW petition approvals ramp up in the next few weeks, Gulick said.

Gulick presented an update on the ongoing CW processing to members and guests of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce at Fiesta Resort & Spa in Garapan yesterday.

That was after making a similar presentation for the CNMI Chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management at Pacific Islands Club.

Gulick also spent a considerable amount of time answering questions from employers and employees waiting for the results of CW petitions.

The delay has been because of the need to collect biometrics for over 11,000 with only a limited staff at the Application Support Center in Garapan.

“There was no deadline on adjudicating the petitions except what we had self-imposed,” he said.

USCIS had a self-imposed deadline of Jan. 31, 2012, to adjudicate CW petitions, but this turned out to be an ambitious deadline.

Despite the delays in the processing of CW petitions, the beneficiaries of these CWs could still continue to work and reside in the CNMI while the petitions are being adjudicated.

“It is hard to justify spending that much government money, resources, when there’s no penalty to the delay in the sense that the employee continues to be allowed to work and live in the United States,” Gulick told Saipan Tribune.

He also engaged in a question-and-answer with employers and employees.

If after 45 days from a biometrics schedule and the employers do not hear from or receive any notice from USCIS, these employers are asked to contact USCIS by sending an email to CNMI.CSC@uscis.dhs.gov.

Gulick said that, as of April 17, 2012, USCIS has received 5,659 I-129 CW petitions for 11,695 beneficiaries. These CW petitions were from 1,782 different employers in the CNMI.

“So far, 1,045 petitions were approved consisting of 1,576 beneficiaries,” Gulick said. This is about 13 percent of the total beneficiaries petitioned so far.

Gulick said 16 petitions were denied, covering 18 beneficiaries.

USCIS wrapped up its biometrics appointments on Rota last week, and is currently doing the same on Tinian.

USCIS also received 1,441 requests from people who would like to obtain parole status, Gulick said. Of those, 135 were permanent residents-type, including for student parole and H1 workers. A total of 761 are immediate relatives of U.S. citizens.

Some employers and workers interviewed after the forum said most of their questions were answered.

Richard Pierce, executive director of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, said that Gulick’s presentation was based on the questions presented beforehand.

“I feel that he did a good job and he adequately addressed those questions. There will always be questions during the process, and that is the nature of the beast-immigration,” he said.

Eric Plinske, Staywell Health Insurance Saipan branch manager and a Chamber member, said it’s good to see that Gulick even stayed behind after the forum to answer further questions from employers and employees. The luncheon forum began at 11:30am and didn’t wrap up until about 1:30pm but Gulick answered questions until about 2pm.