‘CNMI heading right into a huge storm’

Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands chair Gloria Cavanagh believes the CNMI would suffer greatly once the CW-1 nonimmigrant cap is again exhausted for the coming fiscal year, which starts on Saturday.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, early this month, reduced the FY 2017 cap by one from 12,999 to 12,998. However, there are only 2,742 slots left for the coming fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.

Based on data released by the USCIS, 4,661 CW-1 applicants had already been approved, while another 5,595 applications are pending for approval for a total of 10,256 as of Sept. 20 last week, leaving only 2,742 slots left to be filled for FY 2017.

Cavanagh said CW-1 employees regardless of the number of years they have been working in the CNMI would need to go home. Our economy is labor intensive; without labor, our economy will suffer greatly. Employees, regardless of how long they have been in the CNMI, will have to go home. I anticipate the numbers to be huge, in the thousands.”

Construction workers needed for various projects and other developments, especially on Saipan, have used up most of the numbers in the FY 2017 cap. Cavanagh, however, is not painting a grim picture but rather being realistic.

“With the cap being eaten away by construction workers, it leaves operations of current businesses at a great loss. All businesses will be affected, including the casino. This means not just loss of the labor force but overall spending, closure of services, decrease in services, and a huge decrease in the collection of taxes.”

“It is a scary fact that we are heading right into a huge storm and we are not prepared. I don’t think the cap will last even through this calendar year. The loss in 2016 will look minor compared to the damage of business starting in 2017,” she added.

That’s why HANMI along with the Saipan Chamber of Commerce and the CNMI Society of Human Resources have been working closely with the administration of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and the Office of Delegate Gregorio “Kilili” Sablan in trying to lobby for help from the U.S. federal government in finding solutions. They have been working together since May.

Torres has been leading the CNMI panel in 902 talks with their U.S. counterparts while also testifying in a oversight hearing in Washington, D.C. last month along with Chamber secretary Alex Sablan, who is also the Strategic Economic Development Council’s CW and Labor Task Force chair.

“As you know, we all went to D.C. this month to testify on the labor woes in the CNMI. We were hoping to get relief this last quarter. However, that might not be possible. The business organizations are trying their best to find a remedy through political relations in D.C.,” Cavanagh said.

“But this takes time and money. I will be presenting options to HANMI soon. Bottom line, this is a very real and critical issue. There are no quick fixes. Our local population is just not enough to support our industry,” she added.

Torres renews call for NMI inclusion

Torres renewed his call of having the CNMI included in the allocation of CW-1 numbers in order to prevent abuse and misuse by certain companies or industries that have businesses in the Commonwealth.

He said that having the CNMI part of the process in allocating the number of foreign workers was one of the issues they presented in the 902 talks. “This is the reason why we’ve been asking the USCIS for the CNMI to be part of the whole process.”

“So that we can say, ‘okay well maybe 3,000 should go to Tinian or 2,000 to certain things.’ Or by limiting different types of infrastructure, by limiting certain types of business or corporations. But right now we don’t have that.”

He said the CNMI just only waits for which gets approved first. “Any authority who goes in or who goes out and what kind of profession that we need, it’s whoever comes gets approved first and it is alarming.”

As for now, the administration is still waiting for updates from the USCIS on the CW-1 issue. “We’ve made all of those recommendations, all have been put forth and all have been presented to USCIS.”