Press Releases

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree said this afternoon that Department of Homeland Security has agreed to immediately resume processing of H-2B visas for seasonal workers. 

"This is good news for small businesses in Maine who need to hire these workers to staff up for the summer tourist season.  A delay in processing these requests would have made life very difficult for these business owners," Pingree said.

Pingree had written to the Secretaries of Labor and Homeland Security asking them to find a way to resume issuing the visas after a federal court decision.

In today's announcement, officials said a temporary injunctionfiled with the judge in the case will allow them to keep processing visas until April 15, by which time they hope to have new regulations in place that will provide a permanent solution to the problem.

Each year, the federal government issues 66,000 H-2B visas for temporary, non-agricultural workers who fill mostly seasonal jobs.  The visas are issued by the Department of Homeland Security, but the first step is for the Department of Labor to review the application to make sure that hiring the workers won't displace US employees or affect the wages of current workers.  This month a federal judge ruled that the Department of Labor doesn't have the authority to review those applications, and Administration officials promptly announced that applications would no longer be processed.

Employers must also advertise the jobs locally before accepting applications from foreign workers. 

Pingree receieved the following announcement from the Department of Homeland Security late today:

Today, March 17, 2015, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will resume adjudications of H-2B petitions, but will continue to suspend premium processing until further notice.

Monday, March 16, 2015 the Department of Labor (DOL) filed an unopposed motion to stay the March 4 order of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Perez v. Perez until April 15.  That order vacated DOL's H-2B regulations on the grounds that DOL had no authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to issue them. 

DHS suspendedH-2B adjudications while it reviewed the decision. As stated in the motion, DHS will resume adjudicating H-2B petitions based on temporary labor certifications issued by DOL.

To fill the regulatory gap, DOL and DHS announced on Friday, March 13, that they intend to issue a joint interim final rule by April 30, 2015.