Immigration restrictionist groups are unhappy with the Trump administration’s decision last week to quietly expand by 30,000 the number of visas available this year to immigrants who do nonagricultural seasonal work.
“My guess is they are trying to hide the fact they did increase the numbers … Trump knows and the administration knows that this is the message he ran on in 2016 … It is a broken promise by the administration,” said Chris Chmielenski, deputy director of NumbersUSA, which opposes immigration increases.
“They’ve been doing nothing but meeting with business groups for the last few months who have been telling them they need more workers coming into the country,” Chmielenski said.
NumbersUSA has backed the administration’s push to limit immigration in general but opposed administration policies it claims undermine that objective.
Congress has capped the number of seasonal work visas under the H-2B program at 66,000 annually, a number that is quickly exhausted each year due to high demand for the workers at places such as restaurants, retail outlets, and resorts. The Department of Homeland Security has limited discretionary authority to adjust the number of visas available.
DHS confirmed to the Washington Examiner that an additional 30,000 visas will be available this year through the H-2B program. The visas will only be available to returning workers. The decision, made last week, was transmitted to members of Congress but does not appear to have been formally announced by DHS, or the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency within DHS that handles the program.
The department did issue statements when it increased the number of H-2B visas in 2018 and 2017, however.
An aide for one Senate lawmaker who received a notification from the administration said they received “a note sent to the Senator’s office (and others, I’d presume) to inform them that their pressure and advocacy had borne results.”
Several of those lawmakers touted the news to their constituents over the last week. “Considering the low unemployment rate, the importance of the program to the local economy in Maryland’s 1st Congressional District, and the constant oversubscription to the program, I support the Department of Homeland Security’s decision,” said Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md. He called the workers “a crucial resource for the seafood industry, the tourism industry, and other seasonal employers” in his district and across the country.
That resulted in a flurry of local news coverage in local publications such as the Albany Business Review and the Massachusetts Vineyard Gazette, but scant national coverage.
Immigration hawks suggested the administration tried to hide the news.
“This is something Trump ran on, so he knows that this will not play well with his base to increase these low-skilled foreign worker visas, so they kind of kick it under the carpet and hope nobody pays a whole lot of attention to it,” Chmielenski said.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies, which tracks immigration data, said that “it clearly seems like the administration was trying to bury it.” They did it on a Friday, he noted, a day where any news usually gets less attention.
DHS spokeswoman Andrea Palermo did not directly respond to a question about why the department never made any announcement. She told the Washington Examiner the administration wanted Congress to create “a long-term legislative fix” for the visa program.
“[T]he truth is that Congress is in the best position to know the appropriate number of H-2B visas that American businesses should be allocated without harming U.S. workers,” she said. “Therefore, Congress, not DHS, should be responsible for determining whether the annual numerical limitations for H-2B workers set by Congress need to be modified, and by how much, and for setting parameters to ensure that enough workers are available to meet employers’ temporary needs throughout the year.”
