State of NMI economy worries MVA…

The Marianas Visitors Authority has expressed concern about the recent capping of the CW-1 slots that allow businesses in the CNMI to hire foreign workers, a vital aspect for many island businesses.

MVA managing director Chris Concepcion expressed concern about this recent development since many tourism-based businesses are “very dependent on foreign workers to sustain the industry.”

“If the cap has been reached in May and [fiscal year] 2018 hasn’t even begun, we are very worried about [the economy],” said Concepcion.

He remains hopeful that Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP), in tandem with local government heads, would be able to persuade the federal government to “either lift the cap or give a little more flexibility for the CNMI.”

“We are very remote from the U.S. mainland and are very dependent on foreign labor,” he said.

In a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO, it said that zeroing out the CW-1 program in December 2019—as required by law—would negatively impact the CNMI economy.

Since 2009, the CW-1 program has been used to provide the temporary laborers the CNMI needed. It has already been extended once; its prior deadline for abolition was in 2014.

Rep. Angel Demapan (R-Saipan), who believes that reaching the cap justifies the GAO report, said that although the CNMI economy is consistently growing, “such growth cannot be achieved without foreign labor workers to support the limited number of U.S. citizen workers available in the CNMI.”

“…If our economy can’t grow, essential public services are compromised,” he added.

Concepcion echoed a similar comment.

“There is no other way to go around it. We need to have a way to get easy access to foreign labor to staff our industries because without adequate workforce we can’t move forward,” said Concepcion.

The CW-1 cap has been breached for the third straight fiscal year, a feat that has alarmed local business owners as well as numerous government agencies. The CW-1 cap for fiscal year 2018 was breached last May 27 after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received a sufficient number of petitions. Although USCIS has yet to release a specific numerical limit for fiscal year 2018, it is a statutory requirement that every fiscal year the numerical limit of the CW-1 cap goes down. Fiscal year 2017’s cap was set at 12,998.