Vice Speaker Felicidad T. Ogumoro and House Minority Leader Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero raised this concern during a meeting with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Honolulu District Director David Gulick in the House chamber yesterday.
Ogumoro, Covenant-Saipan, asked Gulick how USCIS set the figure.
“What was the basis of that?” she asked.
Gulick answered it was the U.S. Congress that determined the number.
The final transitional worker rule released earlier this month caps to 22,416 the CW status grants as “sufficient to accommodate the number of foreign workers likely to require such status in 2011.”
Ogumoro told reporters that the number is “too high.”
“We need to be fully aware of what exactly our manpower needs are,” she said.
“Maybe because that number was justified in 2008 but I don’t have such information right now but it’s good to know what constitutes that number so that we can work toward reducing that number eventually,” she added.
The CW status is good until Dec. 31, 2014 only. Businesspersons interviewed by this reporter said the cap may be 22,416, but the economy is “so bad” that the actual CW’s to be hired is likely to be half of that number only.
Ogumoro said “we’re talking about manpower needs and we want to make sure that those manpower needs are taken care of by our local people.”
She recognizes that the CNMI will continue to need foreign workers “so we are not going to be in a position to move all the foreign workers out of the CNMI.”
However, she said 22,416 are “too many.”
If this is going to be the case, she said the CNMI government has to work extra hard to come up with programs that will train locals for positions held by foreign workers.
Almost all guest workers are hired by the private sector while local residents prefer to work for the government, which pays much more.
Training programs for local residents have existed for years.
Deleon Guerrero asked Gulick, “Is there any flexibility to adjust the figure?” referring to the current CW cap.
Gulick reiterated that it is the U.S. Congress that can change the number.
He, however, noted that it is a challenge to attract U.S. citizens to jobs currently held by foreign workers.
Most of these jobs are unskilled and labor-intensive.
“It may be difficult but we can always be creative and innovative in solving the problem,” Gulick added.
Additional burden
Ogumoro also expressed concern about the guest workers’ ability to bring their spouses and minor children to the CNMI once granted CW status.
These spouses and minor children will be an “additional burden” for the CNMI because the local government will have to take care of their education, health and safety.
CW workers, however, still need to get federal approval before they can bring their spouses and minor children to the CNMI.
Job ads
Rep. Joseph M. Palacios, R-Saipan, said some employers “avoid” local applicants for jobs held by foreign workers.
He told Gulick that he heard from members of the local community that some employers who want to retain their foreign workers “are trying to circumvent the law” by placing “small” job vacancy announcements in the newspapers. He said some place the ads only on the radio and during hours when there are not many listeners.
Palacios wanted to know from Gulick what USCIS can do to ensure that job vacancy announcement rules are properly observed.
“Can you require a minimum number of days for job vacancy announcements?” he asked Gulick who told him, USCIS has a way to find out if the employer is dealing with them fraudulently.
Palacios said he was satisfied with Gulick’s response.
It’s good to hear, he said, that USCIS expects employers to be honest in advertising job vacancies.
“There should be reasonable length of time to reach out to the locals,” he added.
