Mexican President AMLO Proposes New Guest Worker Visa Based on the Bracero Program CATO
March 1, 2021

President Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) will be speaking today about immigration and other topics. AMLO is expected to propose that the United States and Mexico partner to create a new guest worker visa program to allow Mexicans and Central Americans to lawfully work in the United States.

White House should allow all workers to contribute to economic growth by lifting the ban on H2B visas
Americans for Prosperity
February 21, 2021

As Americans work to recover from the coronavirus pandemic and generate stronger economic growth, it’s critical that government not put up barriers that hurt workers and employers. We can’t afford to leave hardworking contributors on the sidelines because shortsighted rules block people who want to help grow our economy.

H-2B Visas: The Complex Process for Nonagricultural Employers to Hire Guest Workers
February 16, 2021

Since 1952, American employers have hired H-2B foreign guest workers to fill seasonal or temporary jobs that U.S. workers have not taken. Onerous rules kept participation low until the late 1990s, but as more Americans left these types of temporary jobs, more employers accepted the H-2B visa’s restrictive requirements as their only chance to find legal workers.

Ban on New Foreign Workers Left U.S. Jobs Unfilled, Even in Covid Downturn
February 15, 2021

The U.S. closed the door to nearly all incoming foreign workers last year. The causes were Covid-19 restrictions that locked global borders and Trump administration policies that drastically reduced work visas, with the exception of farmworkers. The effect was an unexpected experiment in one of the country’s most hotly debated issues—the relationship between the labor market and immigration.

 

Primer: H-2B Visas are Vital to Meet Workforce Needs, but Reforms are Necessary
February 8, 2021

The H-2B visa program is used by employers to hire temporary and seasonal foreign workers for nonagricultural labor in the United States. The H-2B visa was developed from an earlier H-2 program which facilitated the entry of nonimmigrant workers in sectors that were experiencing workforce shortages. 

 

ROUNDS: SD needs additional H-2B workers
January 30, 2019

Our office hears from South Dakota businesses all the time who are struggling to find employees to hire. For these businesses, being able to hire a few H-2B visa workers each year is a matter of staying open or facing the prospect of closing down.

 

Labor Secretary Calls for Overhaul of Low-Skill Immigration System
January 18, 2019

In the past, Congress has temporarily raised the cap on visas but has declined to do so in the last two years, giving discretion to federal agencies to set numbers. Last year, the semiannual cap was lifted by 15,000 to 47,000.

Mr. Acosta said he would support the same additional numbers this year. But he said he would prefer Congress to set the number, rather than hand it off to departments like Labor and Homeland Security.

 

Businesses Report Glitches on Reopened Seasonal-Work Visa Website
January 7, 2019

Some clients who submitted applications from outside the Amherst office received error messages, she said. “It definitely was not a level playing field,” said Ms. Wright, who worries that some clients may get shut out of the program because of the delays they encountered, even though they began the process when the system reopened.

 

Your Government at Work
January 4, 2019

We wish the feds could operate a website, but the larger problem is that the U.S. economy is creating more jobs than there are American workers to fill. Democrats now have a chance to show they can do something about the visa mess that Republicans failed to fix.

 

Government Visa Website Sidelined by Record Demand
January 2, 2019

The Labor Department received nearly 100,000 temporary worker visa requests in the first five minutes of New Year’s Day, an unprecedented demand that caused the online submissions portal to crash, the government said Wednesday.