Kaipat Says Labor is Helping Alien Workers with US Citizen Children

Local
Monday, April 20, 2009


By Ferdie de la Torre
Reporter

Department of Labor Deputy Secretary Cinta Kaipat said they are helping alien workers who have U.S. citizen children in getting transfer extensions.

In her progress report on the implementation of the Labor Reform Law, Kaipat said on occasion they give transfer extensions to alien workers who are in “hardship cases.”

“For example, the parents would be required to take their U.S. citizen children out of school near the end of the school term,” Kaipat said.

She said they also sometimes give transfer extensions to skilled workers whose prospective employers need time to get the transfer papers together and secure the necessary bonding.

The deputy secretary noted that their success in placing U.S. citizens in jobs and disqualifying unfit employers have resulted in extensions of transfers for some workers.

“If a worker is displaced because a U.S. citizen applied for the job and was hired, then the foreign worker gets another chance to transfer. If we did not do this, we would have less success in getting foreign workers to help train their U.S. citizen successors,” Kaipat said.

If a worker finds a transfer employer but Labor disqualifies this employer for reasons that are not the worker's fault, then the worker gets another chance to transfer, she said.

If Labor did not do this, she said, the department would have less success in keeping workers out of the underground economy.

Kaipat claims they manage the transfer process carefully.

“Every transfer has to be approved in the Administrative Hearing Office and every employer has to be approved by the Director of Labor,” she added