The final rule for transitional workers or CW classification provides that an employer who seeks to classify an alien as a CW-1worker must pay A “CNMI education fee of $150 per beneficiary per year.”
U.S Citizenship and Immigration Service Honolulu District Director David G. Gulick told reporters last week that these fees will be transferred to the CNMI government.
But according to Press Secretary Angel A. Demapan, this fee is specifically reserved for the CNMI’s vocational training programs.
In an email interview Thursday, Demapan said “it is premature at this point to ascertain exactly how much CW permit fees will be collected as this will be dependent on the number of permit applications employers submit to USCIS.”
And because the $150 fee once collected from applicants will be transferred to the CNMI Treasury for a specific purpose, the funds will not be available for general appropriation, he added.
If the CW-visa applications reach the cap of over 22,000, the total fees USCIS can transfer to the CNMI government will be $3.3 million.
It is estimated, however, that the CNMI has 16,000 guest workers only.
The proposed FY 2012 budget appropriates $898,337 for the Department of Labor which is tasked to help train locals for jobs currently held by foreign workers.
In a separate interview, Speaker Eli D. Cabrera, R-Saipan, said the House cannot consider CW fees as part of the projected resources for FY 2012 “because we still don’t know how many will be applied for CW.”
CW applications, moreover, are subject to the approval of USCIS.
Cabrera said once the fees are collected and transferred to the CNMI government, the administration will submit to the Legislature a supplemental budget for appropriation.
The funds are specifically for training locals and may be appropriated only for either Labor or the Workforce Investment Agency.
