Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have adopted an amendment that – if passed into law – would vastly increase the number of seasonal migrant workers allowed into the United States every year.
Backers of the amendment say it is necessary to ensure stability for businesses that consistently bring in temporary foreign workers and reduce uncertainty within the H-2B visa system. Currently, the federal government allocates H-2B visa slots to employers through a lottery, meaning businesses have no guarantee on how many temporary workers they’ll be able to bring in every year.
“I can list countless employers who come to visit me every year and say, ‘What's going to be the situation? How many workers? Will I be able to get the number of people I need?’” Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said in defending the amendment during the bill's markup. “I have examples of a family here who had a family-owned seafood restaurant for 17 years. They've been able to run their business [and] support local fishermen because they have H-2B workers.”
On 24 June, lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee unanimously approved an amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2026 which would allow employers who have brought in H-2B visa workers in the past five years to bring back the same number of workers without it counting against the statutory nationwide cap – typically 66,000, though the government can opt to roughly double that.
The amendment rewards employers who are consistently bringing in seasonal migrant workers and complying with federal law, ensuring that they don’t need to stress every year about gambling on the lottery system.
“These are businesses that follow every rule. They hire American workers first, pay prevailing wages, and meet every federal requirement, but due to overwhelming demand and the outdated visa lottery system, many are being shut out of the H-2B program year after year,” U.S. Representative Chuck Edwards (R-North Carolina) said during the committee markup. “This amendment gives a lifeline to those who've demonstrated five consecutive years of full compliance by guaranteeing a set number of returning visas. This doesn't just help those employers; it helps every other small business that faces labor uncertainty because it's trying to use the overprescribed H-2B program and it supports their communities. These are people who sponsor little league teams, serve on local boards, and keep our small towns alive. We owe it to them to reward reliability and integrity with a stable, predictable process.”
Under the provision, the number of exempted visa slots an employer would be allotted is based on the lowest number of H-2B workers whom an employer hired in any of the last five years.
The seafood sector is highly reliant on temporary migrant laborers, especially when it comes to processing. In 2022, Alaska’s U.S. senators claimed their state's seafood processors would likely need 9,000 temporary work visas for the 2023 seasons. U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has previously introduced legislation to exempt temporary workers employed by seafood processors from the H-2B visa cap.
U.S. Representative Andy Harris (R-Maryland), who has pushed for H-2B visa reforms in the past and introduced the latest amendment, said the provision is necessary to counter the Trump administration’s ramped up efforts to arrest and deport workers in the country illegally.
“As the administration attempts to remove people who are here illegally, it would allow some of those positions to functionally be replaced by people who are here under temporary work visas – not to be confused with illegal immigration,” Harris said in introducing his amendment during a House Appropriations Committee markup of the appropriations bill.
Trump’s immigration crackdown has included increased worksite raids, leading to fear and uncertainty in parts of the agriculture sector that rely on immigrant labor, including the meatpacking sector and aquaculture operations. Trump acknowledged concerns from farmers and other employers that their workers were being arrested early in June.
“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long-time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace. In many cases, the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!” Trump said in a social media post.
The Trump administration briefly considered exempting some agriculture and leisure business – including aquaculture operations – from worksite enforcement investigations and operations, but the policy change was quickly scrapped.
While the H-2B cap exemption amendment was adopted unanimously in a voice vote in committee, it remains to be seen whether the H-2B visas will be approved by the full U.S. House and, subsequently, the U.S. Senate. A similar provision was included in budget bills last year, but Republican leadership stripped the language from the final legislation.
While praising the amendment for solving an immediate problem, Pingree called on her fellow lawmakers to work on a more permanent improvement to the H-2B system and America’s process for vetting and bringing in temporary foreign workers.
“Without these visas that are so necessary, without these kinds of amendments that we have to sponsor, usually every year, because we're always at odds with the system, we can't do it,” Pingree said. “I just want to support all the people who work on this, but I want to encourage us all to find an ultimate solution so that we're not here every year authorizing on this committee – and also dealing with a hodgepodge solution to immigration reform.”
