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Congress and Advocacy Groups in October requested additional H-2B visas after the cap for the first half of the fiscal year was reached in September.

On November 15, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Labor (DOL) announced it would make an additional 64,716 H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas available for fiscal year 2025 (FY 2025). This follows a September announcement by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) stating that it would no longer accept H-2B visa petitions for temporary work before April 1, 2025, as the agency had already reached the congressionally mandated cap for the first half of FY 2025.

The H-2B program allows U.S. employers to apply for visas to hire temporary workers to meet seasonal demand when American workers cannot be found. Under current law, Congress has set the H-2B cap at 66,000 visas per fiscal year, divided into two halves to ensure visas are available for different seasonal work. This split provides 33,000 visas for the first half of the fiscal year (October 1 – March 31), and an additional 33,000 visas for the second half (April 1 – September 30). If the cap is not reached during the first half of the fiscal year, the remaining H-2B visas are rolled over into the second half of the fiscal year.

Advocacy for additional visas
For the last few years, the number of petitions requested for H-2B visas has outnumbered the cap for each half of the fiscal year. The program cap in both halves of the fiscal year often is reached soon after USCIS opens the program to petition. This year, the first-half cap was reached roughly three weeks earlier than in FY24, which demonstrates the growing problem faced by H-2B employers around the country.

To address the cap-gap issue, DHS and DOL have, in recent years, jointly issued temporary final rules to release additional H-2B visas. Since FY 2017, Congress has granted DHS and DOL this authority through provisions in appropriations bills, enabling the agencies to release supplemental H-2B visas when they determine that the needs of U.S. businesses cannot be met with available U.S. workers. In FY 2024, DHS and DOL jointly issued a temporary final rule to release an additional 64,716 H-2B visas, subject to certain conditions and divided into different allocations for different parts of FY 2024.

In light of ongoing labor shortages, advocacy groups and members of Congress are urging DHS and DOL to take similar action for FY 2025. On October 3, 2024, the H-2B Workforce Coalition sent a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and DOL Acting Secretary Julie Su requesting that they make supplemental H-2B visas available for FY 2025. The letter cites reports from the American Enterprise Institute and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which show that every H-2B worker supports 4.64 U.S. jobs, and that U.S. counties with H-2B employers had lower unemployment rates and higher average weekly wages among U.S. workers than those without H-2B employers. Hundreds of national, regional and state organizations that rely on H-2B workers signed the letter, including TCIA.

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives each sent letters to Mayorkas and Su requesting the release of supplemental visas. The Senate letter, led by senators Angus King (I-ME) and Michael Rounds (R-SD), was joined by 38 additional bipartisan senators, and the House letter was signed by 43 bipartisan representatives. Notably, the House letter requests clarification from the agencies on the maximum number of supplemental visas allowed under law, and asks that DOL and DHS consider increasing the maximum number of supplemental visas released to 69,320 instead of 64,716, as in FY 2024.

Looking ahead
Through the temporary rule, the agencies plan to make available 64,716 supplemental visas, which is equal to the total supplemental visas released in FY 2024. According to DHS and DOL, this number “represents the maximum permitted under the authority provided by Congress.” DHS and DOL did not reveal when the temporary final rule would be published, but they did indicate that the visas will be available early in FY 2025. (At the time of this article’s publishing, DHS and DOL will have likely issued the temporary final rule. TCIA will update members via the Advocacy website once the agencies publish the temporary final rule.) We will keep TCIA members informed when DHS and DOL publish the temporary final rule and release the supplemental visas.

Bailey Graves is a senior associate with Ulman Public Policy, TCIA’s Washington, D.C.-based advocacy and lobbying partner.