Eric Plinske, president of the CNMI chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management, said Walter Haith, field office director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a DHS agency, told him that the legal interpretation will be issued within a few weeks.
“There just seems to be so much confusion with the private sector and also the public sector where there are foreign workers. [Haith] said, basically, the umbrella permits will be fine. It will be honored until 2011. He also said the Department of Homeland Security would be coming up with a ruling or interpretation of the umbrella permit as it applies to the U.S. immigration law within a few weeks,” said Plinske.
The CNMI government issued umbrella permits to thousands of foreign workers in hopes of preventing their removal from the islands when the federalization law took effect on Nov. 28, 2009.
