By Zaldy Dandan – Variety Editor
As expected
AS we’ve pointed out before, the local business community has been expressing concern about the “touchback” provision since it was included in a bipartisan CW extension bill passed by a Republican-led U.S. Congress and signed into law by a Republican president in July 2018. The provision, as expected, is creating labor shortages where none should exist. For the past several years, CNMI officials, including the two previous governors and former Delegate Kilili, have asked federal authorities to fix the law. But so far in Washington, D.C.: crickets.
The current delegate will give it another try, and this time she will need more help from the local community and leadership.
We need to remind federal authorities — again and again — that these small, remote islands with a small indigenous population have always lacked workers for certain jobs. This was true during the Japanese era and even during the Trust Territory days when the local economy consisted of only a few business establishments.
The same is true in the United States and other developed nations with large populations and high-wage economies.
In the U.S., a major headline this week is the “immediate exhaustion” of the first tranche of supplemental H-2B visas for early 2026. According to USCIS, nearly 18,500 supplemental visas for workers starting between January and March were gone within a five-day filing window. This leaves seasonal industries like landscaping, hospitality, and construction scrambling for staff. Employers are being warned to prepare for even tighter competition when the next visa window opens for April start dates.
And this is the U.S. we’re talking about — a country of about 340 million people, the world’s largest economy, with extensive workforce training programs at the state and federal levels. Yet U.S. employers continue to hire foreign workers for certain jobs — largely the same jobs in which the CNMI lacks workers.
The CNMI has none of the head-splitting immigration issues the U.S. has grappled with since at least the 1980s. Why, then, should it be saddled with unreasonable immigration rules such as the touchback provision?
Looming
HERE’S another workforce-related news story from the U.S.
A looming demographic crisis is taking center stage as record numbers of “Baby Boomers” reach retirement age. With birth rates declining for decades, experts say there aren’t enough young workers entering the labor force to replace retirees. By some projections, the U.S. could face its largest labor shortage in history by the early 2030s.
As in the CNMI, there are industry-specific shortages in the U.S. and other developed countries. These, in the U.S., include healthcare (over 200,000 nurses needed), construction (350,000 to 500,000 additional workers needed), and even education (a shortfall of more than 600,000 by 2032).
How many CWs does the CNMI have? According to the CNMI DOL, 4,776. National Office Supply, a legacy business employing only 25 workers, has to shut down because nine of its CWs must leave the CNMI under the touchback provision. Four other employees have relocated or are relocating to the mainland U.S.
Some believe that a private company can easily replace its trusted and experienced workers on an island with a shrinking population. Clearly, they are confusing a legitimate business operation with the government — an entity that spends other people’s money and serves as a virtual dumping ground for political hires.
Arithmetic!
THE issue is not about hiring qualified U.S. workers. In a recent report, CNMI DOL noted that 68% of the islands’ workforce is made up of U.S. workers. Of that total, 83% are U.S. citizens or nationals, 13% are green-card holders, and 4% are FAS citizens. The number of CWs decreased by more than 5,000 between 2018 and 2022, and the number of CW-1 permits issued annually has also dropped significantly.
The main issue for the CNMI, then and now, is that there are not enough qualified U.S. workers for certain jobs. Moreover — and no one, it seems, wants to say it out loud — those in the local labor pool have a wide array of career choices here, in Guam, other territories, or the States. The CNMI is not the only place where they can work. The jobs available here are not the only jobs they can choose.
And no one seems to recall that employers cannot hire CWs if qualified U.S. workers are applying for those jobs. The CW program is federally administered and involves prevailing wage requirements.
The main problem, in any case, is that the CNMI, once again, has been dragged into the vortex of the ever-contentious national debate over immigration. That is why the CNMI must continue educating policymakers and lawmakers in Washington, D.C. These officials must be reminded, again, that the Commonwealth’s labor and immigration issues are already under federal control, and should be more manageable, provided some of the current rules are revised to better reflect CNMI realities.
Zaldy Dandan is the recipient of the NMI Society of Professional Journalists’ Best in Editorial Writing Award and the NMI Humanities Award for Outstanding Contributions to Journalism. His four books are available on amazon.com/.
