On May 6th, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin K. McAleenan announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) will make an additional 30,000 H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas available for Fiscal Year 2019. These supplemental H-2B visas are available only to returning workers who received an H-2B visa, or were otherwise granted H-2B status, during one of the last three fiscal years (FY 2016, 2017, or 2018), and availability is restricted by prioritizing only those businesses who would suffer irreparable harm without the additional workers. Final details on the increase in H-2B Nonimmigrant Visas for FY 2019 can now be found here.
The H-2B program allows U.S. employers who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary (seasonal) nonagricultural jobs. Congress has typically capped the number of the temporary visas at 66,000 a year – 33,000 for summer and for winter – though the Trump administration has raised that number by 15,000 in each of the last two years. AGC has routinely asked Congress to expand the cap on H-2Bs.
For more information, contact Claiborne Guy at claiborne.guy@agc.org or 703-837-5382.