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H-2B Employers: Your Immediate Action Needed!

Excerpted from a recent letter by David Fulton of Más Labor, LLC.

The H-2B visa program for seasonal, non-agricultural foreign workers is now limited to just 66,000 visas: 33,000 for October 1-March 31, and 33,000 for April 1-September 30. The first of these two visa caps was reached on October 1. During the summer, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved petitions totaling 33,000 H-2B visas for employers with dates of need between October 1, 2007 and March 31, 2008.

This underlines the need for immediate action by Congress. If the Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act is not passed by the end of the year, it is extremely unlikely that members will be able to hire seasonal foreign workers for the spring and summer of 2008.

What can you do? The following checklist is suggested by the Landscape Contractors Association of Maryland/District of Columbia/Virginia:

  • Send letters to your senators and member of Congress.
  • Call your senators and member of Congress at 202.225.3121 and tell them why the H-2B returning worker exemption is essential to your business.
  • Visit with your elected officials at local events or in their district offices. Bring other area employers, your employees, and your suppliers.
  • Encourage your employees and suppliers to write and call their senators and member of Congress.
  • Send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper highlighting the importance of the H-2B program to your business and your community.
  • Contact other users of the H-2B program in your state and ask them to do the same things. This year, it will take extra effort on your part to get co-sponsors of the legislation and to get it passed.

Please get personally involved in delivering the message that H-2B is not an immigration issue.  The H-2B program is a non-immigrant solution for small and seasonal businesses. Let your congressmen know how important H-2B is to you, your business, and the U.S. workers you employ. For more information, visit savesmallbusiness.org.