{"id":31122,"date":"2014-03-31T15:54:26","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T07:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tribune.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=31122"},"modified":"2014-03-31T15:54:26","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T07:54:26","slug":"new-cw-extension-bill-blunt-call-labor-decide-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/new-cw-extension-bill-blunt-call-labor-decide-soon\/","title":{"rendered":"New CW extension bill; blunt call for Labor to decide \u2018soon\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

As frustration grows with the federal government\u2019s lack of a decision allowing the CNMI\u2019s continued access to foreign workers after Dec. 31, 2014, Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) not only introduced last week a standalone bill extending the so-called CW program by five years but also asked U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez during a congressional hearing to \u201cmake a decision soon.\u201d<\/span>
\nSablan\u2019s bluntest public statement so far states that the U.S. Department of Labor \u201chas been unable, or unwilling to make a decision\u201d for \u201c14 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gov. Eloy S. Inos himself \u201cwas hopeful that a decision would have been rendered by this time,\u201d press secretary Angel Demapan said yesterday, following the governor\u2019s meeting with Perez at a White House event in Washington, D.C. in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernor Inos echoes Congressman Kilili\u2019s request for an immediate decision on the CW extension,\u201d Demapan told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

Sablan introduced H.R. 4296, amending U.S. Public Law 94-241, to extend the CNMI\u2019s immigration transition period by five years or up to Dec. 31, 2019. The bill has been referred to the U.S. House Committees on Natural Resources and Judiciary.<\/p>\n

This is the same language contained in Sablan\u2019s Omnibus Territories Act or HR 2200 and its Senate companion, S. 1237. Sablan said both bills are moving slowly because they contain other changes to territorial law, some of which are controversial.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I have decided to improve chances of enacting the transition extension with a standalone bill, H.R. 4296. This is the same strategy that worked with the transfer of ownership of submerged lands,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n

By extending the transition period by five years, the CNMI\u2019s tourism industry will be protected \u201cby preventing claims of asylum in the Northern Marianas by persons who enter under parole status,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Under U.S. law, the U.S. Labor secretary is required to make a decision by July 4 whether to extend the transitional Commonwealth-only worker program or let it end this year.<\/p>\n

If a decision is made as late as July, that would only leave some five months for the CNMI to do the impossible. That is, to fill the 10,000 jobs that will be left vacant with U.S. workers right away and that means producing hundreds of experienced nurses, engineers, architects, teachers, certified public accountants, construction workers, hotel workers, and even caregivers.<\/p>\n

This, at a time when new hotels, a Saipan casino, and other facilities will be built to meet the tourism industry\u2019s growing demand.<\/p>\n

Sablan said that waiting for the last minute to decide on the CNMI\u2019s requested CW extension leaves businesses uncertain whether they will have \u201can adequate number of workers\u201d and make them invest less.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen there\u2019s the humanitarian concern\u2026because waiting until the last minute leaves 9,617 foreign workers hanging in the breeze. Many of these people have lived in the Northern Marianas for decades. They have families and homes there. If they have to be gone by the end of this year, we owe them the courtesy of letting them know as soon as possible,\u201d Sablan told Perez at the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee\u2019s hearing on U.S. Labor\u2019s fiscal year 2015 budget last week.<\/p>\n

Sablan also reminded the U.S. Labor secretary that the annual number of foreign workers permitted is not the CNMI government\u2019s decision but that of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n

For this year, DHS capped the number of foreign workers in the CNMI at 14,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a long way from zero,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n

He said his office has also reached out to U.S. Labor, asking for technical assistance to the CNMI to train U.S. workers and prepare for the completion of the transition \u201cin a way that keeps our economy whole and does not put the jobs of U.S. workers in that economy at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the uncertainty\u2014in the absence of your decision\u2014is not helping. I hope you will take my words to heart,\u201d Sablan told Perez at the committee hearing.<\/p>\n

It was initially thought that the U.S. Labor secretary would decide last year. But in the past months, there were calls from certain sectors of the CNMI asking the federal government not to extend the CW program.<\/p>\n

The CNMI House of Representatives also passed a resolution in November rejecting improved immigration status for long-term foreign workers in the CNMI, contained in both U.S. Senate and House bills on national immigration reforms.<\/p>\n

Sablan, in an email, said when he met with Perez later in the afternoon after the congressional hearing, the Labor secretary did not give a specific reason why the department has not decided as quickly as he would like.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, of course, the Secretary is well aware that there is opposition to the extension in the Northern Marianas, including Resolution 18-34, passed by the Northern Marianas House of Representatives. And he, and others in the Obama Administration, have to take that opposition very seriously,\u201d Sablan told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

He reiterated that the CNMI does not have 9,716 local workers to replace 9,716 CW permit holders or foreign workers by the end of the year. This figure on the number of foreign workers with CW permits is based on DHS data.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf those workers all have to leave, businesses will close and the local workers they employ will be out of a job. We need to continue the steady reduction in foreign workers. But, as the Government Accountability Office has advised Congress, \u2018any substantial and rapid decline in the availability of CNMI-only work permits for foreign workers would have a negative effect on the economy,\u201d Sablan said in a separate statement.<\/p>\n

Most of the foreign workers in the CNMI are from the Asian countries of the Philippines and China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As frustration grows with the federal government\u2019s lack of a decision allowing the CNMI\u2019s continued…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[169,26,118,63],"class_list":["post-31122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-china","tag-cnmi","tag-cw","tag-philippines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31122","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\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}