USCIS reconsiders touchback

CW-1 workers and their employers will not have to worry about the “touchback” provision of the U.S. Workforce Act this year, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced. Touchback, a minimum 30-day departure from the Commonwealth, is required by the Act after an employee has received three consecutive CW permits. USCIS had previously decided that prior years’ permits would count against the three-year limit. This week, the agency reconsidered and said CW-1 petitions approved after June 17, 2020 would be considered the first of three. Given the difficulties of traveling safely in and out of the Marianas because of the pandemic, this is a practical decision and good news for CW-1 workers and their employers. 

We wrote the touchback provision into the U.S. Workforce Act, however, to open up opportunities for local workers. Delaying the application of touchback for another two years delays that help we wanted to give local workers. USCIS, also, still needs to rethink when the touchback is to occur—during the third year or after the third year. Senator Lisa Murkowski, Representatives Raúl Grijalva and Rob Bishop, and I, whose working group drafted the U.S. Workforce Act have made clear we intended touchback to occur during the third year. We knew it would be economically disruptive for the Act to require the majority of workers to depart at almost the same time, after their third permit expired. Now that USCIS has decided it can be flexible on how it reads the touchback provision, I hope the agency will listen to the people who wrote the law on how it should be implemented. And I hope the extra training funds for local workers and the spending requirements we wrote into the US Workforce Act will be successfully put to use by the Commonwealth government. We need to stay focused on jobs for local workers, especially with so many laid off because of the coronavirus.