Bill Proposes Repeal Of Immigration Office Amidst Workforce Crisis
By Michael Standaert
North Dakota News Cooperative
Rep. Nico Rios (R-Williston) says the concept is simple: Tax dollars should not be used to bring in foreign workers for work in North Dakota that could be done by American citizens.
He, and several other Republicans, want to remove the Office of Legal Immigration from the state’s Century Code under House Bill 1493. The office was created in 2023.
There are enough people who are U.S. citizens and looking for work, he said. An example is his story of coming a decade ago from the South Side of Chicago to work in the oil fields of the Bakken.
“I moved here to get a high-paying job where there was a demand for workers, and I didn’t get my hand held by the government,” Rios said. “I did it on my own.”
Rios said there are plenty of people who would come to work in North Dakota who just haven’t heard of the opportunities.
“We don’t need to be bringing people from all over the world to rural parts of North Dakota because of cheap labor,” he said.
For many industries, however, attracting workers from across the country is a lot more complex than posting a help wanted ad.
Workforce crisis
Currently, for every unemployed person in North Dakota there are nearly three job openings available. Job Service North Dakota’s most recent estimates as of Feb. 5 show over 15,000 known open jobs, up 14 percent from the previous month. The agency estimated as many as 40,000 openings could be available if all positions were advertised.
Businesses, including those in the Bakken, have attempted to recruit and retain workers from across the country but those campaigns often can’t meet the full workforce needs.
This has led to efforts like Bakken GROW, which tapped into humanitarian programs with legal pathways for Ukrainian refugees to fill open positions in the oil fields.
For smaller businesses who struggle to attract American workers, recruiting from abroad is a minefield of bureaucracy, legal hurdles and lengthy waits.
The long-term care industry, for example, has for years had a chronic shortage of qualified nurses, with few in the educational and training pipeline.
Facilities with strict federal staffing requirements coupled with rising costs for travel nurses have also looked abroad, often dedicating years to that process.
Nikki Wegner, president of the North Dakota Long Term Care Association, said the association hadn’t yet taken a position on HB 1493. She said the Office of Legal Immigration had been helpful to members since its formation.
“Some providers have never gone through the immigration process before, and this office helped them understand how it works and explore different pathways to recruit foreign-born talent,” Wegner said.
The Office of Legal Immigration officially started up in July 2023 with two full-time staffers.
It only gained momentum in the past several months as far as working directly with companies and communities that need foreign workers, according to Katie Ralston Howe, director of the workforce division at the ND Department of Commerce.
So far, OLI efforts with companies resulted in six foreign workers moving to the state.
Around another 20 companies are currently in the process of recruiting workers from abroad through assistance provided by the OLI, Ralston said.
Of those 20, more than half are long-term care facilities, she said.
Companies in agriculture, the food supply chain and manufacturing, as well as oil and gas industries and education, have all shown interest in foreign workers , Ralston said.
If the OLI is repealed, the current two full-time staff members and the expertise they’ve gained would go with it, she said.
“We would not be able to continue serving North Dakota employers and communities in the way we are now, because we wouldn’t have the expertise. We’d have to start from scratch, and we wouldn’t have the capacity because our workforce division is already operating in a lot of different areas already,” Ralston said.
Sen. Jeffery Magrum (R-Hazelton), who has signed on to the effort to repeal the OIL, said he opposed the creation of the office during the past legislative session and doesn’t see the need to create more state agencies.