The Administration has not yet released the 65,716 supplemental H-2B visas that many land improvement employers depend on to meet workforce needs. The H-2B Workforce Coalition, in which LICA participates, is supporting an effort by Senators King (I-ME) and Rounds (R-SD) and Rep. Harris (D-MD) urging the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in consultation with the Department of Labor (DOL), to use the authority Congress provided in the current Continuing Resolution to release the maximum allowable number of additional H-2B visas for Fiscal Year 2027. These visas will allow employers to supplement their U.S. workforce to keep their businesses open and provide additional certainty for their workforce planning decisions in the coming months.
Tag: immigration policy
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the congressionally mandated H-2B visa cap for the first half of fiscal year (FY) 2027 has been reached as of the September 4, 2026 deadline. This date covers applicants seeking to start work before April 1, 2027. The regular semi-annual limit is 33,000 workers for this period. The second half of fiscal year 2027 (covering start dates from April 1, 2027, through September 30, 2027) will receive its own statutory allocation of 33,000 visas. Petitions for the summer season typically open for filing in early January. Based on previous years, demand is extremely high, and the regular second-half cap historically fills entirely within a few months.
The H-2B Coalition, which LICA has joined as a participating member, continues to work for an increase in the annual H-2B cap for the number of workers eligible for temporary work status under the program. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which administers the program, announced it has already received enough petitions to fill the congressionally established H-2B cap for the first half of fiscal year (FY) 2027. Sept. 4, 2026 was the final deadline for worker petitions under the 2027 first-half-year cap requesting an employment start date before April 1, 2027.
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