The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that the 33,000 H-2B cap positions for the second half of this fiscal year have been reached.
According to the announcement of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the number of positions for whom DHS received petitions surpassed the total number of H-2B visas eligible for the second half of this year, VisaGuide.World reports.
USCIS announced through a statement that February 27, this year was the final receipt date for the new cap of H-2B visa petitions requesting an employment date on or after April 1 this year as well as before October 1 this year.
The agency announced that new cap-subject H-2B requests received after February 27 would not be accepted.
USCIS announced that on March 1 it conducted the selection process to randomly select requests from those received on February 27.
“In accordance with regulations, we determined it was necessary to use a computer-generated selection process intended to ensure the fair and orderly allocation of H-2B visa cap numbers available, without surpassing the FY 2023 cap,” the statement noted.
The agency confirmed that it will still accept H-2B requests that are exempt from the congressionally mandated cap taking also into account requests for:
H-2B workers currently in the United States who plan to extend their stay and change the terms of their employment or change their employers
Fish roe technicians, fish roe processors, or supervisors of fish roe processing
Workers performing labor or services in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands as well as Guam
Despite the fact that the H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visa cap was met, USCIS previously announced that the numerical limit would increase by a total of 64,716 additional visas, in addition to the current 66,000 cap positions for the fiscal year.
The US Department of Labor issued a joint temporary final rule, on December 15 last year in this regard.
The Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas confirmed that the Department is making supplemental temporary non-agricultural worker visas eligible earlier than ever, ensuring that American businesses can make plans for their peak season labor needs.
It was clarified that the H-2B cap increase is eligible only to businesses in the US that are suffering irreparable harm or will be affected in the future if they cannot employ all the H-2B workers that they requested on their Form 1-129 requests may file H-2B applications under this temporary increase.
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