Collins, King, Pingree push for more H-2B visas to help Maine tourism businesses

FILE PHOTO / LAURIE SCHREIBER Members of Maine’s congressional delegation are calling on the federal government to double the number of H-2B worker visas, to help fill worker shortages in busy tourist towns like Bar Harbor, seen here.

Write a Comment

By Staff

Members of Maine’s congressional delegation are calling on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to more than double the number of H-2B worker visas to help small businesses fill seasonal job openings.

U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine, and Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine 1st District, sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, calling on him to increase the existing 66,000 H-2B visa cap to 135,320. That number was the total available in fiscal year 2007, according to a news release.

The Labor Department has received requests for more than 96,000 worker positions for the 33,000 available slots in the second half of the current fiscal year.

“H-2B workers help seasonal businesses such as inns, restaurants and hotels operate at full capacity,” Collins, King and Pingree wrote in the joint letter. “We have already heard from Maine businesses, particularly in the tourism and hospitality industries, that the demand for workers already exceeds the number of available visas."

They asked for an increase “as soon as possible” so that employers will have a sufficient number of employees for the upcoming season.

The DHS has used similar authority to issue additional visas every year since FY 2017, with the exception of FY 2020, when the pandemic shut down the hospitality industry for part of the year.

At a Senate Labor Committee hearing last month, Collins said the H-2B visa program is vital in supporting jobs and businesses in Maine’s tourism industry.

Earlier this month, King joined a group of colleagues to urge President Joe Biden to rescind former-President Donald Trump’s ban on seasonal, employer-sponsored and cultural exchange visas.

As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Pingree secured an amendment in the House-passed FY 2021 spending bill to ensure the Secretary of Homeland Security issues all available visas.

Many Maine businesses rely on foreign workers to meet the demand of the high-visitation summer months, King noted in a separate release.

In many cases, the situation limits the work that a business can do and forces them to reduce hours or make other cutbacks.

Earlier this month, HospitalityMaine’s new president and CEO, Matt Lewis, told Mainebiz that, to help address chronic workforce shortages during the summer season, the group is launching educational programs in partnership with the Maine Community College System to source students and encourage them to explore hospitality careers.

Maine’s hospitality industry, the second-largest employer in the state, lost 41,000 jobs in 2020 because of shutdowns and travel bans.

H-2B visas are non-immigrant visas that allow employers to temporarily hire foreign employees for one-time occurrences and seasonal, peak-load or intermittent needs.