U.S. Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) said Friday it is important to come to an agreement \u201cat home\u201d on what the CNMI\u2019s contract worker needs are as stakeholders differ on whether to pursue a permanent or an extended contract worker program, ahead of formal talks with the White House on the issue and a potential push of legislation through U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n
Sablan also said it is important that consultation with the White House is successful, \u201c so that we have the backing of the President\u201d in changes proposed to Congress for the CW program.<\/p>\n
Top business leaders advising the government on economic policy on Tuesday voted to recommend that Gov. Ralph DLG Torres pursue a permanent program of some 18,000 workers to meet the project development needs of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. A \u201cgreat majority\u201d of the Strategic Economic Development Council had voted to make this recommendation based on the \u201cfuture number of operating, staff required\u201d for the islands development plans, SEDC chair Bob Jones had told Saipan Tribune Thursday.<\/p>\n
Some government officials, though, believe a request for about 15,000 workers for an extension of 10 years would be more feasible.<\/p>\n
Sablan, for his part, said he would not second-guess whether Torres should accept the recommendation or not. The governor has already included the CW program on his agenda for 902 consultations with the U.S. President\u2019s special representative, he said, and he is sure that Torres would consider the council\u2019s recommendation, along with what he has agreed to with the Legislature and what he thinks best for the long-term interest for the islands.<\/p>\n
Torres\u2019 team, through the NMI covenant, is expected to take lead of these talks and push for an agreement with the White House on a worker program package moving forward. If talks are successful, then that would shift responsibility to Sablan for legislative action.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn preparation for that time, or in case no agreement is reached in 902,\u201d Sablan said,\u201d I have been holding listening sessions here at home to be sure I understand all the reasons for and against extending the CW Program beyond 2019, and, if it is extended, for how long and how many workers would be needed.\u201d Sablan has already met with both houses of the Legislature, members of SEDC, Torres, and plans to meet with Torres again, U.S. and CW workers, businesses, and nonprofit groups. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe questions we need to answer about the future of the Commonwealth are not easy,\u201d Sablan said. \u201cSo far, I do not hear any complete agreement among the groups I have been listening to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even if we do reach agreement among ourselves here in the Marianas, I tell everyone, getting Congress to extend the CW program will not be easy,\u201d he added. \u201c\u2026Changing CW, which was originally supposed to be temporary and transitional, to be permanent instead\u2014that would be even more difficult.\u201d Sablan says he bases this \u201con experience\u201d with pushing immigration issues in Congress for the last eight years, including \u201calready getting the program extended for five years\u201d in Public Law 113-235 in 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) said Friday it is important to come to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[26,118,10360,4322],"class_list":["post-227743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-cnmi","tag-cw","tag-sedc","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227743","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}