Employers can now begin preparing the CW-1 employment petitions for their foreign workers for fiscal year 2020, with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ready to accept them beginning April 4, 2019.<\/p>\n
This time, USCIS will be requiring all CW-1 filings to include an approved temporary labor certification from U.S. Department of Labor.<\/p>\n
All CW-1 petitions that have a start date on or after Oct. 1, 2019, that are filed without an approved TLC from U.S. Labor will be rejected.<\/p>\n
Employers must also include a prevailing wage rate when petitioning a guest worker for a fiscal year 2020 CW-1 visa.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe TLC will confirm to USCIS that there is not a qualified U.S. worker available to fill the employer\u2019s job opportunity in the CNMI, and that the employment of a CW-1 worker will not adversely affect the wages or working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers,\u201d said USCIS in a statement.<\/p>\n
In a statement sent to Saipan Tribune, the Torres administration thanked the U.S. Department of Labor for the new labor certification process for CW-1 petitions based on the published Interim Final Rule.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new regulations, mandated under the NMI U.S. Workforce Act, establishes an added requirement as a prerequisite for approval by [the U.S. Department of Homeland Security] of an employer\u2019s CW-1 worker petition and ensures protections for both CW and U.S. workers,\u201d said the Torres statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe administration looks forward to working with USDOL as it conducts educational outreach on this new labor certification process within the next 120 days as mandated by Public Law 115-218 [the Northern Mariana Islands U.S. Workforce Act of 2018]. This will allow for greater clarity for businesses and the community at large for obtaining a CW-1 visa and for the ongoing development of more U.S. workers in our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NMI Workforce Act extended the CW-1 program to the year 2029 and set a numerical cap for each fiscal year until then: 13,000 (FY 2019), 12,500 (2020), 12,000 (2021), 11,500 (2022), 11,000 (2023), 10,000 (2024), 9,000 (2025), 8,000 (2026), 7,000 (2027), 6,000 (2028), 5,000 (2029), and 1,000 (first quarter of fiscal year 2030).<\/p>\n
USCIS will announce additional guidelines in submitting CW-1 petitions in the coming days.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther than complying with the TLC requirement applicable to CW-1 petitioners with employment start dates on or after Oct. 1, 2019, CW-1 petitioners should continue to follow current USCIS regulations, procedures, and forms,\u201d said USCIS.<\/p>\n
Enough CW1 slots<\/strong><\/p>\n The Northern Marianas Business Alliance Corp., meanwhile, reminds employers that they are still trying to come up with a prevailing wage for the CNMI and they must not worry as there are enough CW-1 slots available based on USCIS data.<\/p>\n \u201cThe NMBAC has recommended that employers that will be submitting applications for a CNMI prevailing wage determination from the U.S. [Labor] should know that there is no current CNMI prevailing wage available for CW-1 applicants,\u201d NMBAC president Alex Sablan told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n \u201cThe [CNMI] Department of Commerce, in conjunction with the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, through Hive Analytics and DataTalks, will conduct a sector-by-sector prevailing wage survey, which should\u2026[be] completed by May 16. An announcement of the completion and posting to the CNMI Prevailing Wage website will be forthcoming.\u201d<\/p>\n Sablan again reminded employers to wait until a CNMI prevailing wage is established. \u201cIt\u2019s only a recommendation that employers wait for a CNMI Prevailing Wage posting because the current law requires that, in the absence of a CNMI Prevailing Wage, U.S. DOL foreign labor desk adjudicators must use the \u2018mean\u2019 wage determination of Guam for CW-1 applications.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that there are enough CW-1 slots. \u201cThere is no risk of running out of CW-1 visas this fiscal year [2020] as was indicated by USCIS that less than 9,000 of the 13,000 available CW-1 visa quotas were utilized in fiscal year 2019. There are no new hotels or industries opening in fiscal year 2020 so the chances of visas running out is not likely.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAgain, we encourage everyone to wait for the 2019 Saipan Chamber of Commerce and CNMI DoC Prevailing Wage Survey to be complete before filing your wage determination,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Employers can now begin preparing the CW-1 employment petitions for their foreign workers for fiscal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296265","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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}