{"id":303300,"date":"2019-07-11T06:06:47","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T20:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=303300"},"modified":"2019-07-11T06:06:47","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T20:06:47","slug":"uscis-emptyhanded-on-revised-cw-1-regs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/uscis-emptyhanded-on-revised-cw-1-regs\/","title":{"rendered":"USCIS emptyhanded on revised CW-1 regs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services community relations and outreach regional lead Jennifer Lane addresses the Saipan Chamber of Commerce during a brief presentation Wednesday.\u00a0(Erwin Encinares)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services remains without updated CW-1 regulations that would guide CNMI employers in petitioning foreign workers or renewing their immigration visas.<\/p>\n

The new regulations are supposed to govern the implementation of Public Law 115-218, or the Northern Marian Islands U.S. Workforce Act of 2018, which President Trump enacted on July 24, 2018. Yet one year later, it was learned yesterday during a presentation to the Saipan Chamber of Commerce that there are still no updated CW-1 regulations reflecting the passage of P.L. 115-218.<\/p>\n

However, Jennifer Lane, USCIS community relations and outreach regional lead, noted that the absence of updated CW regulations should not discourage business-owners from submitting their CW-1 petitions.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026Just because we haven\u2019t published the regulations yet doesn\u2019t mean you cannot apply for it,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2026If you are filing for an employee, a CW-1, who will start their employment by Sept. 30 or earlier, then you are filing\u2026under the [fiscal year] 2019 numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anything beyond Oct. 1, 2019, would consume fiscal year 2020 slots, Lane noted during yesterday\u2019s brief presentation at the Hyatt Regency Saipan.<\/p>\n

The only caveat for applying beyond October 2019, according to Lane, would be to submit an additional document known as the \u201ctemporary labor certification\u201d from the NMI Department of Labor.<\/p>\n

Also, with the absence of the new regulations governing the CW-1 visa, Lane noted that E-Verify.gov, a source for information on electronic employment eligibility that is open to the public, is still not mandatory.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we haven\u2019t published the House Resolution 559, E-Verify is still not mandatory. [E-Verify] will not be mandatory until we publish the [new] regulations,\u201d she said. In the meantime, Lane suggests that employers should start getting familiar with E-Verify for the future.<\/p>\n

Lane, who presented to the SCC and answered questions with USCIS district 26 community relations officer Kamana Mathur, did not specify when USCIS plans to release the new CW-1 regulations.<\/p>\n

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres had already sent three letters to USCIS. Two letters were dated June 6, 2019 and Sept. 18, 2019, while an earlier letter to then-U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen around August 2018 urged the agency to reserve 200 CW-1 permit applications for healthcare practitioners and both technical and healthcare support occupations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services remains without updated CW-1 regulations that would guide CNMI employers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":303301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[119],"class_list":["post-303300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-uscis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303300","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=303300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}