On May 25, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen announced that an additional 15,000 H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas will be available for fiscal year 2018. <\/p>\n
Nielsen determined there are not sufficient, qualified, U.S. workers available to perform temporary non-agriculture labor to satisfy the needs of American businesses in fiscal year 2018. <\/p>\n
This allocation is in addition to the 66,000 visas already issued this year. <\/p>\n
Nielsen made this decision after consulting with Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, members of Congress, and business owners.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe limitations on H-2B visas were originally meant to protect American workers, but when we enter a situation where the program unintentionally harms American businesses it needs to be reformed,\u201d said Nielsen. \u201cI call on Congress to pass much needed reforms of the program and to expressly set the number of H-2B visas in statute.\u00a0 We are once again in a situation where Congress has passed the buck and turned a decision over to DHS that would be better situated with Congress, who knows the needs of the program.\u201d<\/p>\n
The H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker program was designed to serve U.S. businesses unable to find a sufficient number of qualified U.S. workers to perform nonagricultural work of a temporary nature. <\/p>\n
Congress set the annual H-2B visa cap at 66,000. <\/p>\n
A maximum of 33,000 H-2B visas are available during the first half of the fiscal year, and the remainder, including any unused H-2B visas from the first half of that fiscal year, is available starting April 1 through September 30.<\/p>\n
On Feb. 27, 2018, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services determined that it had received sufficient H-2B petitions to meet the full fiscal year 2018 statutory cap of 66,000.<\/p>\n
In the FY 2018 Omnibus, Congress delegated its authority to the secretary to increase the number of temporary nonagricultural worker visas available to U.S. employers through September 30, just as it did in the FY 2017 Omnibus. In the intervening time since enactment of the FY 2018 Omnibus, the secretary consulted with the secretary of Labor on the issue, in accordance with congressional requirements, and developed this rule.<\/p>\n
Eligible petitioners for H-2B visas can file\u00a0Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker.\u00a0 Eligible petitioners must submit a supplemental attestation on\u00a0Form ETA 9142-B-CAA-2\u00a0with their petition.<\/p>\n
Details on eligibility and filing requirements are available in the\u00a0final temporary rule and on the\u00a0Increase in H-2B Nonimmigrant Visas for FY 2018\u00a0webpage.<\/p>\n
If members of the public have information that a participating employer may be abusing this program, DHS invites them to submit information to\u00a0ReportH2BAbuse@uscis.dhs.gov\u00a0and include information identifying the H-2B petitioning employer and relevant information that leads them to believe that the H-2B petitioning employer is abusing the H-2B program. (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On May 25, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen announced that an additional 15,000 H-2B…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[56,1085,508,1238],"class_list":["post-277343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-business-3","tag-dhs","tag-fy","tag-immigration-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}