Less than 3K unaffected by ‘touchback’

Based on a recent Office of Insular Affairs report, it was determined that less than 3,000 CNMI-Only Transitional workers qualify as “legacy” or “long-term” workers and will be exempt from the newly implemented touchback provision of the law that would require them to leave the CNMI and “touch back” their country of origin.

According to Alex Sablan of the Northern Marianas Business Alliance Corp., the OIA report states that less than 3,000 individuals qualify as a “legacy” or “long-term” visa holder in the Commonwealth.

“Everyone but under 3,000, everybody but the long-term, needs to touch back. We always assumed it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,000 or even 9,000 because of the number we had out here but some people had to leave and that break caused them not to be a continuous employee,” he said in an interview with Saipan Tribune.

Sablan explained that, as per the definition of the U.S. Congress, what defines as a “legacy” worker is a CW worker from 2015 to 2018 who has been continuously employed in the CNMI, with no shift in employment to a different employer, and more.

“It’s affecting anybody who was under that definition, as defined within the public law, and it is a good number of our CWs today. If you look at the intention of the law, this is exactly what Congress wanted. …The H2-B program is somewhat like that—a three-year break—three years then you cannot be renewed into the United States as an H2. I think that’s what they want to do with the CW,” he said.

When asked about how this touchback provision would impact the CNMI, Sablan said due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the CNMI wouldn’t be as devastated.

“If this were any other time, if we were on full board economy going, this would be troublesome, we would be devastated. With COVID-19, with the fact that we have an economy that is dwindling, and a lot of U.S. citizens unemployed today, it makes it very hard to justify CWs in this timeline. …Right now, it’s a blessing in disguise that we have COVID-19; this would be the silver lining,” he said.

At the end of the day, Sablan said, it’s still going to be troublesome to lose a large chunk of the CNMI workforce due to this new provision.

“It’s troublesome that we’re going to lose a big portion of our CW workforce for the period of time it takes to actually renew these individuals. We’ll see how this plays out. At the end of the day, we don’t know when the economy is going to start up again,” he said.