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BREAKING NEWS: USCIS grants more time to file CW extensions
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Employers, who have not yet received the temporary labor certifications required to renew their employees’ CW permits for fiscal year 2020, will get some extra time, according to Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP). Sablan said the congressional office has received word that information about the one-time, limited reprieve will be posted on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website today.
Sablan has been working with USCIS to make sure that large numbers of CW workers do not have to leave the Marianas when the fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 because their employers were unfamiliar with the new requirement to obtain a temporary labor certification from the U.S. Department of Labor before applying for the fiscal year 2020 CW.
USCIS has decided to allow certain employers, who are still waiting to receive the labor certification, to file a late CW permit extension up until Nov. 1.
“This is good news,” Sablan said. “Businesses that filed for a temporary labor certification starting after Oct. 1 for a CW worker they currently employ and have not yet received approval will not have to send their workers home.
“I want to thank acting Homeland Security secretary McAleenan and acting USCIS director Cuccinelli and their staff for using the discretionary authority that we wrote into the U.S. Workforce Act last year to make this transition a little smoother.”
Sablan and congressional office staff have been meeting with and updating officials from USCIS and the Department of Labor for months as it became apparent that many Marianas employers and CW workers were at risk of not meeting the new deadlines. There were 2,536 applications for temporary labor certifications, covering 7,217 workers, still pending as of Monday, according to the Department of Labor.
Sablan asked the agencies for relief in August and reiterated his request yesterday in a letter to McAleenan. Today’s decision responded to Sablan’s request. (PR)
