U.S. Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan on Tuesday introduced H.R. 1420 “to modify the requirement to remain outside of the United States for Commonwealth Only Transitional Workers.”
The bill was referred to the U.S. House committees on Natural Resources, and Judiciary.
The impact of the touchback provision of the U.S Workforce Act of 2018 on the CNMI economy was one of the issues that Gov. Arnold I. Palacios brought up during the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources hearing on the “State of the U.S. Territories” early last month. He asked U.S. lawmakers to repeal the touchback rule.
In his e-newsletter on Friday, Kilili said his bill would delay for three years the touchback provision which requires employers to send CW-1 visa holders back to their home country every three years.
“This was problematic during the pandemic, however, when air flights were interrupted and increasingly costly and home country ingress requirements made it difficult for workers to return,” he said.
He noted that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did effectively delay the touchback for one year for some guest workers.
Kilili said the touchback provision was “part of a broad agreement among the Marianas business community, the Commonwealth government, and a bipartisan, bicameral congressional working group that led to President Donald Trump signing the U.S. Workforce Act into law….”
The goal, he added, was “to decrease reliance on foreign workers and encourage investment in the Marianas’ own local workforce.”
“This is occurring, although the pandemic may be largely the reason. From 2020 to 2021, according to the most recent report from the governor required by the U.S. Workforce Act, the number of U.S. workers employed in the Marianas held steady near 13,000. The number of foreign workers, according to the governor, fell from about 8,000 to 6,000,” Kilili said.
Gov. Palacios, for his part, told U.S. lawmakers that under the touchback provision, “a large proportion of workers will be required to depart all at the same time without a clear timeline for their return, and at a time when businesses are attempting to regain normalcy in operations.”
He added, “The touchback provision’s disruptions to families, businesses, and the overall economy cannot be overstated.”
