Looking to help address the ongoing contract worker crisis, government officials offered assurances on their efforts to solve the issue but have not yet made public the details to these plans.<\/p>\n
The administration of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres disclosed Friday that they are looking at options to address the \u201cadministration of the contract worker program\u201d and to \u201cseek options to incorporate\u201d these into forthcoming 902 talks \u201cin the next week or so\u201d that will address the concerns with the renewals of contract worker employees in coming months that would otherwise be rejected by the federal government.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are working along with Congressman Gregorio Kilili Sablan and will incorporate this experience\u201d into the 902 consultations with the White House \u201cin the next couple of weeks,\u201d said the Torres administration, in a statement, when sought for comment by the Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
Officials have been researching federal administrative procedure to see what they can request from federal immigration officials, or the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which two weeks ago had announced they had received a number of contract worker applicants to meet their cap of 12,999 workers allowed to work in the CNMI this year.<\/p>\n
Delegate Sablan, for his part, in his newsletter on Saturday and on his Facebook page, said that \u201cCommonwealth officials, stakeholders, and I have been working toward agreement on a long-term solution for immigration.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sablan noted that USCIS has announced they are near the limit of 12,999 CW permits for foreign workers and no more applications will be accepted for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2016. And that employers who submitted applications 180 days in advance, as USCIS advises, are not affected. <\/p>\n
\u201cAn unknown number of workers with permits expiring before Sept. 30 could have to leave, however,\u201d he said. \u201cA likely cause of the CW shortage is the use of the permits for construction workers, who could be eligible for the unlimited H-2B visa. The Commonwealth government estimates as many as 3,400 CW permits could be converted to H-2Bs.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time the CW cap has been reached and there is no easy fix. I traveled to California in January to get things moving, when CW applications backlogged at the processing center there; and I will do everything now to get us through this current crisis and eventually reach a permanent solution,\u201d Sablan said in his newsletter Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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