{"id":397848,"date":"2023-08-28T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=397848"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Kilili-Pacific-Islands-key-to-US-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Kilili-Pacific-Islands-key-to-US-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Kilili: Pacific Islands key to US security"},"content":{"rendered":"

Economic and social stability is truly key to fortifying national security interests and peace in the region, according to Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (D-MP)<\/p>\n

Sablan said in his e-kilili newsletter over the weekend that a congressional delegation of U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee members, led by chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Arkansas), is traveling throughout the Pacific this week.<\/p>\n

Last Thursday the committee, in which Sablan is a member, held an oversight field hearing in Guam on the importance of the Pacific territories and the Freely Associated States to U.S.-led global security in the region.<\/p>\n

The delegate said that Pacific leaders, including Gov. Arnold I. Palacios, testified before the committee.<\/p>\n

He said Palacios stressed the importance of his (Sablan) bills, H.R. 560 and H.R. 1420, to stabilize the Marianas workforce and in turn provide greater stability in the Pacific.<\/p>\n

H.R. 560 provides CNMI resident status to certain otherwise qualifying non-U.S. nationals (aliens under federal law) who do not meet a current requirement of having resided continuously and lawfully in the CNMI from Nov. 28, 2009, through June 25, 2019.<\/p>\n

According to the summary of H.R. 560, an individual shall be exempt from this residency requirement if the individual was admitted as a Commonwealth Only Transitional Worker (CW-1) during Fiscal Year 2025 and every subsequent fiscal year before July 24, 2018.<\/p>\n

An individual who has resided in the NMI as an investor and is currently residing as an NMI-only nonimmigrant may receive CNMI resident status upon meeting other requirements.<\/p>\n

With respect to H.R. 1420, it seeks to delay for three years the \u201ctouchback provision\u201d of the NMI Workforce Act, Public Law 115-218.<\/p>\n

The legislation proposes to modify the requirement for foreign workers in the CNMI\u2014called CW1 workers\u2014to exit the Commonwealth while the renewal of their work visa is being processed.<\/p>\n

The \u201ctouchback\u201d rule is due to go into effect next month. Palacios told the committee that it will adversely impact many businesses in the CNMI when implemented.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Gov. Arnold I. Palacios, left, and Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (D-MP) pose for a photo during a break of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources\u2019 oversight field hearing to examine the importance of the Pacific Islands to the U.S.-led global security, at the Hilton Hotel in Tamuning, Guam on Thursday.<\/p>\n

-CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
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Economic and social stability is truly key to fortifying national security interests and peace in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397848","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}