Noted immigration lawyers Bruce Mailman from the CNMI and Nelson J. Xu from Guam have this important piece of advice to the islands\u2019 employers: Start applying your eligible CW workers for H1 visas now.<\/p>\n
Speaking before yesterday\u2019s Society for Human Resource Management CNMI Chapter\u2019s 2014 Annual Conference on the topic of \u201cCurrent Immigration Issues for the CNMI,\u201d Mailman and Xu agreed that the extension of the CNMI transition period\u2014with yesterday\u2019s signing of H.R. 83\u2014should serve as a signal for Commonwealth employees to start evaluating their nonresident workforce and transition crucial employees to the U.S. immigration system.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think employers here should first of all take a look at the workforce and see who is eligible for U.S. visas. A lot of these people can also qualify for better level visas that they have. You have to change the job description, the job skills, and you have to qualify. H1 [visa] is for a specialty occupation, which means that a person has to qualify, usually a four-year degree, but there are certain exemptions and the job has to qualify,\u201d said Mailman of Mailman & Kara, LLC.<\/p>\n
Mailman, however, said while many current CWs are actually doing H1-level jobs in the CNMI, they would have to, in essence, give CWs a higher job designation in order to qualify for H1 visa.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe your accountant will have to become a comptroller and you have to demonstrate there is a real change. If you can do that, you have a good shot at it. If you can\u2019t do that, it\u2019s not gonna work. They\u2019re very fussy about this.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also acknowledged that the CNMI\u2019s lack of a prevailing wage survey is hindering more companies from applying for H1 visas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need a prevailing wage survey. We\u2019ve been using Guam\u2019s and H1 petitions using the Guam scale is quite a bit higher.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mailman said a U.S. visa petition recently came through where an H1 applicant earning $45,000 a year was approved and because they needed to use Guam\u2019s prevailing wage, this particular applicant must now be paid in the $70,000-a-year range.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that each employer must decide if they can do it and if they can afford to do it. Hopefully we can get a wage survey and things will become more sensible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Xu, a partner in Bauman, Kondas & Xu, one of Guam\u2019s leading law firms in U.S. immigration and business law, echoed Mailman\u2019s call for employers to start shifting CWs to H1 visas if they qualify. <\/p>\n
\u201cH1 has such tremendous benefit. First of all, these people are not in low-end jobs, they\u2019re educated and they\u2019re in specialty occupations like engineers, doctors, and all these people. Then they can stay here for six years. Renewal is three years at a time so you save a lot of money from it. And then they can switch to green card very easily and it becomes a permanent solution. Compare H1 to one-year only CW and clearly H1 is a much better alternative,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Xu said employers must get rid of the trauma and stigma associated with giving loyal, long-term, and valuable employees green cards.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany employers I\u2019ve talked to, they\u2019re reluctant to apply their employees for green cards because they worry that if their employers have it they will leave, which is likely to happen, unfortunately. But if you treat them right, give them a higher wage, benefits, and stuff like that and of course they might still stay. On the other hand, what are you going to do after five years? Everybody\u2019s gone so you need to select who you want and actively select who you want to keep and start working on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He, however, acknowledged that most of the CWs can\u2019t qualify for H1 visas because they don\u2019t have the qualification for H1 and that’s where family-based visas can help.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a SHRM conference. [But] there\u2019s family-based and you have to explore other options. If you have a CW worker who has a U.S. citizen child who is turning 21 years old in the next five years, then you may not want to do anything and just wait for the child to turn 21. That\u2019s a nice way. Family-based, if they\u2019re qualified, is very easy. Employment-based is difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mailman agreed with Xu when he said, \u201cmany of our workers here have U.S. citizen children who will in the next few years will turn 21 years old. These children can sponsor their parents. That\u2019s a source of stability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Xu also said that CNMI employers must not treat the enactment of H.R. 83 into law as the beginning of the end of the yearly rush of renewing CW applicants, but the start of preparations for the end of the transition period.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not the end. This is the beginning. It\u2019s time because five years is the end of the five-year transition. There will be no more extensions from what we know on what the law says. Everybody must think about how to transition to the U.S. immigration system and depart from the CNMI immigration system. Even though the CNMI immigration system is controlled by the U.S. system, we need to move into the U.S. system and apply for green card and apply for U.S. immigrant visas that make sense to them. That\u2019s the take away. I don’t want to see any employer wait until 4 \u00bd years later and they all come to me and say \u2018Nelson, we need help.\u2019 I\u2019ll tell them \u2018this time we\u2019re closed\u2019 because next time we won\u2019t be able to do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
SHRM\u201ds 2014 Annual Conference was held at the Pacific Islands Club Saipan\u2019s Charley\u2019s Cabaret and it was attended by over 100 human resources practitioners on the island. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services\u2019 Diane Zedde also spoke during the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Noted immigration lawyers Bruce Mailman from the CNMI and Nelson J. Xu from Guam have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[666,49,924,40],"class_list":["post-187682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news","tag-chcc","tag-cuc","tag-disconnection","tag-pss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}