U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Department of State, announced Friday the list of countries whose nationals are eligible to participate in the H-2A and H-2B visa programs in 2020. The\u00a0notice\u00a0listing the eligible countries was published in the Federal Register on Jan. 17, 2020.<\/p>\n
For 2020, the acting secretary of Homeland Security has determined, with the concurrence of the Office of the Secretary of State, that the countries designated as eligible in 2019 will remain unchanged.\u00a0<\/p>\n
DHS maintains its authority to add countries to the eligible countries list at any time, and to remove any country whenever DHS and DOS determine that a country fails to meet the requirements for continued designation. Examples of factors that could result in the exclusion of a country or the removal of a country from the list include fraud, abuse, denial rates, overstay rates, human trafficking concerns, and other forms of noncompliance with the terms and conditions of the H-2 visa programs by nationals of that country.<\/p>\n
The H-2A and H-2B visa programs allow U.S. employers to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary agricultural and nonagricultural jobs, respectively. Typically, USCIS approves H-2A and H-2B petitions only for nationals of countries that the secretary of Homeland Security has designated as eligible to participate in the programs. However, USCIS may approve H-2A and H-2B petitions, including those that were pending as of the date of the Federal Register notice, for nationals of countries\u00a0not\u00a0on the list on a case-by-case basis only if doing so is determined to be in the interest of the United States.<\/p>\n
Effective Jan. 19, 2020, nationals of the following countries are eligible to receive H-2A and H-2B
\n\u2022 Andorra
\n\u2022 Argentina
\n\u2022 Australia
\n\u2022 Austria
\n\u2022 Barbados
\n\u2022 Belgium
\n\u2022 Brazil
\n\u2022 Brunei
\n\u2022 Bulgaria
\n\u2022 Canada
\n\u2022 Chile
\n\u2022 Colombia
\n\u2022 Costa Rica
\n\u2022 Croatia
\n\u2022 Czech Republic
\n\u2022 Denmark
\n\u2022 Dominican Republic*
\n\u2022 Ecuador
\n\u2022 El Salvador
\n\u2022 Estonia
\n\u2022 Fiji
\n\u2022 Finland
\n\u2022 France
\n\u2022 Germany
\n\u2022 Greece
\n\u2022 Grenada
\n\u2022 Guatemala
\n\u2022 Honduras
\n\u2022 Hungary
\n\u2022 Iceland
\n\u2022 Ireland
\n\u2022 Israel
\n\u2022 Italy
\n\u2022 Jamaica
\n\u2022 Japan
\n\u2022 Kiribati
\n\u2022 Latvia
\n\u2022 Liechtenstein
\n\u2022 Lithuania
\n\u2022 Luxembourg
\n\u2022 North Macedonia
\n\u2022 Madagascar
\n\u2022 Malta
\n\u2022 Moldova*
\n\u2022 Mozambique
\n\u2022 Mexico
\n\u2022 Monaco
\n\u2022 Mongolia
\n\u2022 Montenegro
\n\u2022 Nauru
\n\u2022 The Netherlands
\n\u2022 Nicaragua
\n\u2022 New Zealand
\n\u2022 Norway
\n\u2022 Panama
\n\u2022 Paraguay*
\n\u2022 Papua New Guinea
\n\u2022 Peru
\n\u2022 Poland
\n\u2022 Portugal
\n\u2022 Romania
\n\u2022 Samoa
\n\u2022 San Marino
\n\u2022 Serbia
\n\u2022 Singapore
\n\u2022 Slovakia
\n\u2022 Slovenia
\n\u2022 Solomon Islands
\n\u2022 South Africa
\n\u2022 South Korea
\n\u2022 Spain
\n\u2022 St. Vincent and the Grenadines
\n\u2022 Sweden
\n\u2022 Switzerland
\n\u2022 Taiwan**
\n\u2022 Thailand
\n\u2022 Timor-Leste
\n\u2022 Tonga
\n\u2022 Turkey
\n\u2022 Tuvalu
\n\u2022 Ukraine
\n\u2022 United Kingdom
\n\u2022 Uruguay
\n\u2022 Vanuatu<\/p>\n
Moldova, Paraguay, and the Dominican Republic are eligible to participate in the H-2A program, but they are not eligible to participate in the H-2B program.<\/p>\n
Regarding all references to \u201ccountry\u201d or \u201ccountries,\u201d it applies to Taiwan and is considered consistent with the United States\u2019 one-China policy, under which the United States has maintained unofficial relations with Taiwan since 1979.<\/p>\n
This does not affect the status of H-2 beneficiaries who currently are in the United States unless they apply to extend their status. It does apply to nonimmigrants changing status in the United States to H-2A or B. Each country\u2019s designation is valid, subject to removal for failure to meet the requirements for continued designation, from Jan. 19, 2020, until Jan. 18, 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For more information on these programs, see the\u00a0H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers\u00a0and\u00a0H-2B Temporary Non-Agricultural Workers\u00a0pages on the USCIS website. (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of Homeland Security, in consultation with the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":309809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315924","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=315924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}