Many California businesses rely on seasonal workers from other countries to fill positions every year. Seasonal workers who are approved for H-2B visas are allowed to travel to the U.S. and work as seasonal laborers in service, landscaping, and construction industries. Recently, the Trump administration stated that it will allow an additional allocation of 35,000 H-2B visas this year.
According to MarketWatch, the annual cap on H-2B visas in the U.S. is 66,000. However, the administration is allowed to allocate additional visas beyond the cap when it identifies that more visas are needed. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that 10,000 of the additional visas will be reserved for people from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador since those countries agreed to take in some people who are seeking asylum so that the pressure at the border is eased.
Seasonal workers who secure H-2B visas are allowed to work in the U.S. for under one year. They are typically employed in restaurants, hotels, amusement parks, meat processing plants, landscaping companies, and construction businesses. The DHS reports that many of the additional H-2B visas will be reserved for temporary non-farm workers who are returning to the U.S. and that steps had been taken to mitigate against fraud within the visa program.
Companies that need seasonal workers to fill their vacant positions might want to get help from experienced immigration law attorneys. The lawyers may help their clients by drafting and filing the petitions for H-2B visas for the needed workers. The attorneys might assist their clients in gathering all of the documents and evidence that they might need to support the reasons why their H-2B visa applications should be approved. This may help companies to secure the workers that they need to fill all of their vacant, seasonal positions.