A legal foreign worker in the Commonwealth, more commonly known as a CW-1 visa holder, may legally stay and continue working for up to 240 days beyond their expiration if certain conditions are met.<\/p>\n
A statement from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which was issued in response to an inquiry made by the office of Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP), states that the 240-day relief given to a CW-1 visa holder is only eligible if the employer renews the CW-1 visa and is asking to continue a previously approved employment; the employer files the petition before the CW-1 visa expires; and if the employer asks to extend the employee\u2019s stay in the petition.<\/p>\n
The 240 days of continued employment is still subject to USCIS approval on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 240 days of continued employment authorization does not extend a CW-1 worker\u2019s nonimmigrant status,\u201d said David Gulick, district director of USCIS for Hawaii, Guam, and the CNMI, in the USCIS statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt only allows the employee to continue working with the same employer,\u201d he clarified in the letter, adding that the 240-day authorization does not give the visa holder a nonimmigrant status but rather allows the holder to continue working for his employer while not accruing unlawful presence in the CNMI despite the expiry of the CW-1 visa.<\/p>\n
Unlawful presence may be a bar to future entry to the U.S.<\/p>\n
Official statements issued to Saipan Tribune by Sablan\u2019s office expressed hope that the clarification will be helpful for \u201csome people whose fiscal year 2017 CW-1 permits are expiring soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe three criteria set out by USCIS must be met to continue working lawfully for the same employer for up to 240 days, or until USCIS issues a decision on a fiscal 2018 petition, whichever comes first,\u201d said the statement, adding that the 240-day rule would provide relief to employers as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI encourage employers to make an appointment at the USCIS Application Service Center to determine whether the rule applies to their particular case,\u201d concluded the statement.<\/p>\n
For more information on the 240-day rule, visit the USCIS page on the matter at: https:\/\/www.uscis.gov\/working-united-states\/temporary-workers\/cw-1-cnmi-only-transitional-worker\/temporary-relief-workers-expiring-cw-1-nonimmigrant-status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A legal foreign worker in the Commonwealth, more commonly known as a CW-1 visa holder,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[26,11852,1238,119],"class_list":["post-254749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-cnmi","tag-david-gulick","tag-immigration-services","tag-uscis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254749","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}