Attorney Maya Kara said foreign workers with CNMI permits that will expire after June 1, 2009 must submit applications to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to be admitted in the transitional guest worker program.
However, those with CNMI labor permits that are still valid beyond the effective date of the federalization law will retain their current status until their CNMI permits expire.
“When June 1, 2009 comes, whatever CNMI permit you hold as a foreign worker, it’s good until the end of [your contract] period,” said Kara, a former acting attorney general and legal counsel to the governor, lt. governor and the House of Representatives.
“We’re encouraging foreign workers eligible for a two-year permit…and also [immediate relatives]…to get a two-year permit because we don’t know how far into the transition period we’re going to be before the new system [takes effect],” she added.
Kara said employers should consider renewing the contracts of their foreign workers for the maximum allowable period of two years.
Contracts that have been renewed should be amended to add another year to them, she added.
According to Kara’s husband, immigration lawyer Bruce Mailman, “The essence of our strategy right now is to buy time. You need to get as far into the transition period under the CNMI permit as you can because A) you know what the CNMI permit gives you; B) you don’t know what the CNMI transition program is going to look like. We hope it’s going to look like the foreign national worker program but we don’t really know; and C) you don’t want to [expect a lot from a] new [system] that has never been tried before.”
Kara said although employers will pay double to prolong the expiry date of their workers’ contracts, it will benefit them in the long run.
Since Nov. 1, the local Department of Labor has been charging employers $375 to process the application of each foreign worker they hire.
The foreign worker separately pays $25 a year for their alien registration card.
The federal government is scheduled to publish the governing regulations for the federally administered CNMI immigration system in April next year.
Kara said no one knows what specific rules will be imposed until the draft has been published.
She said employers can terminate the contract of their foreign hires before the two-year period expires in case the economic crisis worsens.
“Certainly, the law is not going to hold the employer to pay somebody for two years when they go out of business in three months. That’s not fair to anybody,” she said.
