CW program extended 5 years

After months of uncertainty, multiple prodding, and false alarms, U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez finally granted yesterday the CNMI’s request to extend up to Dec. 31, 2019, the transitional immigration program allowing some 10,000 foreign workers to continue working in the CNMI. The five-year extension, considered monumental news, will also give the CNMI more time to prepare its U.S. labor pool.

Perez made the announcement in letters to Gov. Eloy S. Inos and Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) yesterday, a little over a month before the law-imposed July 4 deadline to make a decision.

The governor and the delegate had urged Perez for a decision as early as last year to minimize uncertainties for businesses and workers, and to avoid stalling economic growth.

“This is certainly welcome news for the CNMI,” the governor said. “This was a very concerning issue amidst fears that a decision to the contrary would have severely hurt our fragile island economy. Many businesses were holding back from any long-term strategies and CW workers were uncertain about the future of their employment status.”

Besides bringing tremendous relief to the CNMI economy, the extension of the “Commonwealth-only worker” or CW program is also about keeping families with U.S. citizens together.

“We don’t have to live apart from each other. My parents—CW workers—won’t have to go back to the Philippines, together with my 10-year-old sister, after Dec. 31. I’m so happy to hear about this news,” Jennycka Bery, 18, told Saipan Tribune in an interview at the U.S. Post Office in Chalan Kanoa yesterday.

Bery, a Northern Marianas College student, also has a 19-year-old brother now serving in the U.S. Marine Corps who could soon be deployed to Asian countries.

“The additional years would also give more time for my parents to be petitioned for immediate relative status,” Bery added.

Her parents met on Saipan. Her father came here in 1989, while her mother, a year later.

John Limes, 53, said he can’t imagine the CNMI without foreign workers after 2014 so he’s glad that the CW program is extended by five years.

“For me, five years is okay. These foreign workers are doing their job, they are helping the CNMI,” the Kagman resident said in an interview also at the post office.

Luis Cagamba, a licensed civil engineer in the Philippines and now a production supervisor in the CNMI, said with all the ongoing and planned road and building constructions, the islands cannot afford to lose valuable foreign workers.

“The CNMI still needs CWs. How else would you start or finish construction projects? Who else would do a lot of the jobs that require special skills and training? But maybe if the foreign workers are gone, those originally from here will be forced to do all the jobs—from designing projects to mixing and pouring cement,” he said.

Yearly updates

Sablan, in a statement, said it was obviously “not an easy decision” for the U.S. Labor secretary.

“It took more time than I wanted,” the delegate said. Sablan is nevertheless thankful for Perez’s decision to grant the extension.

There were worries that the extension, if granted, would be for less than five years.

The U.S. Labor secretary’s decision means the phase out of the current foreign worker program in the CNMI will end in 2019, rather than this year.

Perez, in his letter, justified his decision saying it would “enable CNMI’s legitimate businesses to meet their current and near-term future workforce needs.”

Perez also asked the CNMI to provide yearly updates, starting in April 2015, “documenting your good faith efforts to locate, educate, train or otherwise prepare U.S. citizens and other lawful permanent residents for jobs.”

Perez’s decision is expected to be in the Federal Register in the next few days.

A 38-year-old Kagman resident said the CNMI “definitely” still needs foreign workers for its economy.

“But please don’t put my name. This is a sensitive issue. I am a local but other locals who don’t agree with what I said about CWs, they would talk bad about me,” he said as he was leaving the post office.

US worker pool

Hours after receiving yesterday’s letter from the U.S. Labor secretary, the governor met with CNMI Labor Secretary Edith DeLeon Guerrero and Commerce Secretary Sixto Igisomar “to begin efforts to prepare and establish a viable resident workforce ahead of the 2019 expiration,” press secretary Angel Demapan said.

Inos said he will take “all necessary steps to effectively train and prepare U.S. citizens and other lawful permanent residents to meet the workforce needs of legitimate businesses in the CNMI.”

“This may be our only chance. We cannot allow this opportunity to pass us by; we need to train our residents and get them back into the workforce,” he said.

This is also an opportunity for the CNMI to establish “the best and most viable resident workforce in the Pacific,” Inos said.

Sablan said the CNMI has to use the extra five years for the CNMI’s economic recovery “and redouble efforts to replace foreign workers with U.S. workers.”

At least 2,600 new guest rooms in two separate hotels and one integrated casino resort are expected to be built within the next few years, among the first major construction developments in over a decade that require thousands of U.S. and foreign workers.

Jesus Ilo Taisague, of the Democratic Party, said “whether one agrees or disagrees” with the five-year extension, it is a “federal jurisdiction in which only the feds can decide whether to grant or not to grant.”

“The decision came as a relief and gave peace of mind to many CWs in the CNMI. It now behooves the CNMI to proactively train U.S. citizens to take over jobs being occupied by CWs because I’m most certain the feds will not grant another extension,” Taisague said.

Alex Sablan, president of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, said the extension is “good news for the many workers and businesses that have been concerned about their jobs and ensuring we have a sufficient workforce in the CNMI.”

“I applaud Governor Inos and Congressman Kilili for their persistent lobbying and echo both their efforts to ensure the CNMI has realistic goals set with only $1.4 million in training dollars that will provide measurable deliverables with regard to workforce development of our U.S. citizen populace,” he said, when sought for comment.

Rep. Ralph Yumul (Ind-Saipan), chairman of the House Tourism Committee, said Perez’s announcement is a “long-awaited response that we want to hear,” but he said five years is short so businesses should plan ahead.

“We must now plan and develop our workforce and should we get another extension, it will be a bonus for the business community. My goal now is to give support to institutions like [Northern Marianas Technical Institute], [Northern Marianas College] and [Workforce Investment Agency] to train and prepare our workforce,” he said.

Legislative fix

The U.S. Labor secretary’s request for the CNMI to provide yearly updates jobs mirrors language in Sablan’s bills, H.R. 2200, and its Senate counterpart, S. 1237.

Both bills require the CNMI to be more accountable for the use of an annual $150 fee paid by employers for each non-U.S. transitional worker they hire.

The funds are required to be used for training replacement U.S. workers.

In fiscal year 2013, the CNMI received $1.4 million in fees, which it distributed to local education institutions.

H.R. 2200 and S. 1237 call for the CNMI to provide a plan of use for these training funds before the fees are handed over by U.S. immigration authorities.

Sablan said the plan must include a projection of the number of U.S. workers that will be employed as a result of the spending.

H.R. 2200 requires the U.S. Government Accountability Office to report to Congress every two years with an assessment of the effectiveness of the training.

But S. 1237, which has been amended by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and is currently on the agenda for approval by the full Senate, shifts responsibility for overseeing the use of the training funds to the Labor secretary.

“The Labor Department technical staff has already become very involved in analyzing workforce needs in the Northern Marianas in order to advise the Secretary on whether to extend the transition period,” Sablan said.

He said it makes sense to “build on that new expertise and get the Labor Department even more involved in tracking the transition to an all-U.S. workforce over the next five years.”

“I also want to see the department actively engaged in assisting the Commonwealth, using the experience and resources that Labor has in the areas of vocational training,” he added.

The bills do not allow any more extension of the CW program beyond 2019.

Sablan’s bills also extend the E2-C investor visa program beyond Dec. 31, 2014, exempt the CNMI and Guam from the H visa caps, and extend beyond Jan. 1, 2015 the CNMI’s exemption from accepting asylum applications.

H visas, improved status

Sablan said five years may seem like a long time but “it will not be easy to whittle away the remaining 10,000 foreign employees in the Northern Marianas.”

“Many have specialized skills and decades of experience in their fields and with their current employers. And with the economy growing the demand for labor will increase. The Commonwealth government, local businesses, and U.S. workers who are looking for jobs all have their work cut out for them in the five years ahead,” he said.

Foreign workers do not necessarily have to exit the CNMI after the CW program expires, if they qualify for an H visa, for example, that their employer would have to apply for them.

Enoch Sungsoo Lim, director and general manager for H.S. Lee Construction Co. Inc., said the company would want to upgrade the status of its CW employees who are qualified for H-type visas. He said they have more than 20 CW employees.

“We are willing to apply for H visa for those who are qualified,” said Lim in an interview also outside the post office in Chalan Kanoa yesterday.

Lim hopes that other employers in the CNMI will also start applying for H visas for their qualified employees long before the CW program expires in 2019.

H.S. Lee Construction is currently proposing to build a three-story hotel with 36 rooms and commercial spaces in Garapan. Lim said without foreign workers and without the CW program extension, construction projects such as hotels are not likely to be completed.

For businessman Bong Malasarte, a former president of the United Filipino Organization, the CW extension gives his compatriots and other foreign workers more time to plan their future and pursue their goals.

“In business, most of the employers will have enough time to adjust their business now that CWs will still last for five years,” he said. Moreover, he said, the CNMI is guaranteed five more years of service from the foreign worker community.

Foreign workers under the CW program work in virtually all aspects of the CNMI economy and community, among them nurses, teachers, certified public accountants, engineers, architects, programmers, construction workers, technicians, mechanics, journalists, graphic artists, caregivers, hotel and restaurant workers, and farmers, among other things.

Elmer Barrogo, 57, said five years will give him more time to support his son’s education. His son will be in college this June, pursuing marine engineering. Because it would be a trimester, his son will earn his degree in four years.

“Once the CW programs ends in 2019, I think my family would be fine. But if the U.S. government grants improved status like green card to those who have been in the CNMI for a long time legally, then I would be so thankful,” he added, as he hauled mail and packages from the post office yesterday. Barrogo has been working in the CNMI since 1991.