CW session at PH consulate draws 200-plus audience

The outreach session of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services hosted by the Philippine Consulate General on Tuesday night discussed key points in the recently released final rule involving the Commonwealth-only transitional workers in the CNMI.

The one-and-a-half-hour session, held at the Filipino Workers Resource Center and beamed to a large TV on the lobby of the Marianas Business Plaza in Susupe, was attended by over 200 members of the Filipino community.

USCIS district director David Gulick led the eight-member team that discussed the final rule using a Powerpoint presentation. Gulick, with the help of the rest of the team, answered some of the queries asked by Filipinos during the question-and-answer session at the end of the presentation.

Gulick discussed, among other things, the need for Filipino workers to be applied for a CW status by their employers before Nov. 27 to allow them to stay legally in the CNMI and the fees that the employee and/or employer should pay.

He said a CW status does not allow a person to travel anywhere in the U.S. It does, however, allow Filipino workers to transit through Guam when traveling to the Philippines.

Once the petition is filed, an employee can continue working for the employer until USCIS approves or denies the petition, said Gulick.

“If we deny the petition, then you will be expected to depart the CNMI,” said Gulick, noting that the denial notice will be sent to the employer.

Gulick emphasized that the employer needs to attest that no U.S. worker—U.S. citizens and citizens of the Freely Associated States (Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, and Marshall Islands)—qualified for the position before the petition is filed.

Also, an employee can only be petitioned for a CW status if the employee is not qualified for any other status under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act.

Gulick also reminded session attendees that the USCIS is authorized to grant a two-year parole status to eligible foreign nationals that are members of four different groups impacted by the federalization law. They are CNMI permanent residents, their immediate relatives, and the immediate relatives of FAS citizens.

He said workers with CW status can petition for their spouse and children below 18 years old as their dependents.

Gulick also said that an employer can request, under special circumstances, for a waiver for petition and biometric fees but not the educational fee. The employer is required to pay the petition and education fees while the employee may pay the biometrics fee.

The Q&A part of the session saw Filipinos asking mostly about their personal circumstances as well as case-by-case situations.

The first question was whether an H1 petition and a CW petition can be applied at the same time for an employee, to which Gulick replied that an employer can only apply for one petition depending on the job description and the employee’s qualifications.

Gulick noted that workers with ongoing court cases without any legal status in the CNMI will have to leave the islands “unless their presence is physically required in court,” adding that the USCIS will assist in getting them back to the Commonwealth should the court call for it.

He also said that there are no income bracket requirements for any legitimate business that wants to employ house workers to allow them to stay on island.

Should an application be denied and an employer decides to appeal it, Gulick said the affected employee cannot stay on island while the appeal is being processed “unless they have a status.”

As for who will pay for the repatriation of an employee, Gulick said an employer does not have the responsibility to shoulder that expense under the U.S. immigration law but noted that it will also depend on any contract signed by the employer and employee.

“It’s good that the information already came directly from the authoritative source,” Consul General Medardo Macaraig told Saipan Tribune. “Filipinos in the CNMI can now plan based on that.”

Macaraig added that digital copies of the outreach session will be distributed to the Filipino communities on Tinian and Rota and can be played at the Consulate upon request.

United Filipino Organization president Bong Malasarte said the session clarified some of the questions of many Filipino workers. “It would greatly help Filipinos on what to do next,” he added.

Malasarte said they will convene members of the UFO, the umbrella organization of some 30 Filipino groups in the CNMI, to gather questions that will be endorsed to the Consulate in hopes that it might still be answered by the USCIS.

Labor representative Carmelina Velasquez thought that Gulick had too limited a time to answer questions during the Q&A portion of the session. “I just wished that more time was spent answering questions than discussing the information already available on their materials and website,” she said.

According to Velasquez, the session still raised uncertainties even among professionals employed by large establishments and companies.

“Let’s just hope and pray that there will be consideration on a case-by-case basis since the final rule is already out,” she added.