‘Touchback rule will impact our capacity to complete federally funded projects’

Leila Staffler

Labor Secretary Leila Staffler echoed the sentiment of Rep. Blas Jonathan T. Attao (Ind-Saipan) Wednesday about the impact of the touchback rule on the CNMI’s capacity to complete by the deadline many federally funded projects, considering that the Commonwealth does not have enough construction workers.

With the data that they have, Staffler said they know that if they take every single graduate from every single program in any entity on the islands, the CNMI still would not be able to meet the gap that losing all foreign workers would create.

“We need more workers here present, whatever they are, in order to be able to meet all of the deadlines and be able to spend all of the money is given to us for these projects,” said Staffler during the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee’s 2024 budget hearing for Labor.

Staffler discussed the touchback rule in response to Ways and Means Committee chair Rep. Ralph N. Yumul’s (Ind-Saipan) request for an update on the matter.

Touchback refers to the requirement for foreign workers to leave the CNMI before their work visas could be renewed for a third consecutive time. That departure requirement also means they will have to stay away until a new permit is approved, which could take months.

Staffler said they are often asked how many employers will be affected by this and what dates are they affected, but these are the kinds of data they don’t have access to because U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services does not share that with them directly.

She said she made a request through their Freedom of Information process online, and that she’s at about No. 222, so she is still waiting to hear back from them.

The secretary said she also reached out to Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (D-MP) and has been working with Sablan’s team to make a connection with USCIS to be able to get that information more readily.

Staffler said she did create a survey that she just launched that Wednesday at the Saipan Chamber of Commerce meeting to get more information from private businesses on how many employees are affected, what their positions are, and what months are they scheduled to have to leave.

Staffler said the touchback requirement is beyond the CNMI’s control as the only entity that could change that requirement is the U.S. Congress. “It does not look very likely that that is a requirement that will change,” she said.

The secretary said the Labor survey will give them a bigger picture of when the majority of CW employees will be leaving.

She said they are planning, among other things, to have a job fair to help give employers a place to help search for possible employment opportunities.

In reference to the infrastructure grants given to the CNMI, with a lot of these grants that the CNMI are getting—whether it be Federal Emergency Management Agency, or Economic Development Administration, or even Community Development Block Grant monies—the CNMI has a deadline and unfortunately, the Commonwealth does not have the manpower to be able to meet the deadlines, Attao said..

“That’s even if at this point, if they give us another three years, we probably wouldn’t be able to meet the deadline, because we don’t have the manpower,” Attao pointed out.

With this touchback, Attao said, when affected workers go to U.S. embassies to fix their papers, instead of being there for a month, they’re there for like four to six months because their papers aren’t being processed.

“And that really chokes us over here because we don’t have the ability locally to finish these projects,” he said.

Staffler said she did submit last Friday a CW plan on behalf of Gov. Arnold I. Palacios and in the plan she did include language that expressed the amount of projects that the CNMI has ahead and the amount of money for each project and the fact that most of those are federally funded.

She said she did include that the timelines for these projects are dwindling and that fact that the CNMI does not have enough construction workers to do those jobs.