{"id":5698,"date":"2025-03-31T06:41:34","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T10:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2025\/03\/31\/as-trump-squeezes-the-immigrant-work-force-employers-seek-relief\/"},"modified":"2025-03-31T06:41:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T10:41:34","slug":"as-trump-squeezes-the-immigrant-work-force-employers-seek-relief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2025\/03\/31\/as-trump-squeezes-the-immigrant-work-force-employers-seek-relief\/","title":{"rendered":"As Trump Squeezes the Immigrant Work Force, Employers Seek Relief"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In recent weeks, managers of the nation\u2019s resorts, plant nurseries, fish processors and racetracks started getting very worried.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration had yet to release a batch of H-2B visas \u2014 those available for seasonal businesses that often can\u2019t find enough workers domestically to fulfill demand.<\/p>\n

Usually, the Department of Homeland Security releases them a few days after receiving more applications than the number of visas allowed for the second half of the year. That cap was reached on March 5, but no announcement came. Industry lobbyists got members of Congress to reach out on their behalf, put on a fund-raiser at Mar-a-Lago and sent a letter urging the administration to continue issuing the visas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt needs to be done by April 1, otherwise we all get backed up,\u201d said Greg Chiecko, the president of the Outdoor Amusement Business Association, which represents traveling carnival producers. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard that they\u2019re going to, but they\u2019re being very deliberate in waiting a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n

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Finally, last Wednesday, a news release announced that the visas would continue to flow, allowing businesses that banked on having them for the summer to move forward with their plans.<\/p>\n

But the anxiety reflected a deep uncertainty about where President Trump is headed on legal immigration programs, both temporary and permanent, as the administration ramps up deportations and moves to end the legal status of millions who arrived in recent years. Those actions will squeeze the labor supply that many employers depend on \u2014 and they\u2019re using the crackdown to argue for broader channels for people to come and work.<\/p>\n

Last week, the American Business Immigration Coalition \u2014 a group representing employers of immigrants \u2014 gathered its members in Washington to plead their case with lawmakers. Their refrain: Congress can both stop illegal migration and bring more people in legally, as well as give those already here a chance to stay.<\/p>\n

The organization\u2019s chairman, Bob Worsley, runs a modular housing construction firm in Arizona, where he has long struggled to find enough workers. A Republican, he won a State Senate seat in 2012 in part to oppose further immigrant crackdowns in the state after several high-profile efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is kind of like a dam that\u2019s holding back water \u2014 the water is going to find a way to get past the dam, just by sheer force,\u201d Mr. Worsley said. \u201cYou can secure the border, but if you don\u2019t fix immigration so people can come legally, it will happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Trump has said he\u2019s willing to let in more people legally, and he is a frequent user of short-term employment visas at his resorts, golf clubs and winery. Nevertheless, as with other plans for immigration policy beyond the current focus on enforcement, the administration\u2019s intentions remain cloudy. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

A powerful restrictionist contingent in the White House led by Stephen Miller, a deputy chief of staff, has argued that letting people in even on a controlled, temporary basis hasn\u2019t adequately protected domestic workers. (The Southern Poverty Law Center, an advocacy group for civil rights, has long criticized the programs as well.)<\/p>\n

Project 2025, the blueprint drafted by the conservative Heritage Foundation that the administration has so far largely followed, recommends winding down the H-2A and H-2B visas, which are often called guest-worker visas and are good for up to 10 months. Instead, the document proposed encouraging employers to invest in automation instead.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Worsley\u2019s group sees an opening, once Mr. Trump is satisfied with his progress on enforcement and Congress has dealt with a raft of expiring tax cuts, to expand temporary worker visas and to create a path to legal status for millions of undocumented people who have lived in the United States for years.<\/p>\n

The group organized a news conference last week to celebrate the reintroduction of key legislation and to make the Republican argument for passing it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n

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One bill, endorsed by the United Farm Workers union, would allow some undocumented agricultural workers to stay in the United States legally, as well as provide more flexible terms for those with work visas.<\/p>\n

A sponsor of the measure, Representative Dan Newhouse, a Republican who owns an 850-acre farm in Washington State, said his colleagues had felt unable to act while the border remained chaotic. \u201cThat excuse no longer exists,\u201d Mr. Newhouse said. \u201cI truly think this is the Congress that we can make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n

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Representative Mar\u00eda Salazar, a Republican from Miami, proposed something more sweeping: the Dignity Act, which would create a path to legal residence for undocumented workers, reform existing visa programs and beef up border security. The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus endorsed the bill last fall, and Ms. Salazar argues that it does enough for all sides to gather majority support.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the Christian thing to do, that\u2019s the right thing to do, that\u2019s the Republican thing to do,\u201d she said, while praising the president\u2019s enforcement agenda and what she thinks is his desire to negotiate a grand bargain. \u201cTrump will be for immigration what Reagan was for Communism,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n

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Such an agreement has long eluded lawmakers, and the repeated failure of comprehensive change has pushed most constituencies to acknowledge that piecemeal actions may be necessary.<\/p>\n

The could start with a fix for the people brought to the United States as children who are currently shielded from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which polls well even among Republicans. Representative Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who heads the House Judiciary Committee, has said immigration reforms including help for the Dreamers, as they\u2019re known, could follow the tax bill currently being negotiated.<\/p>\n

Massey Villarreal has seen many of these fights before. A Texas Republican who advised former President George W. Bush on immigration issues, he runs a technology firm and recently finished a term as chair of the Texas Association of Business, the state\u2019s largest chamber of commerce. To him, the country has steadily moved away from the more welcoming immigration system he would like to see.<\/p>\n

In this volatile political environment, however, that trajectory could change quickly. One way Mr. Trump may be persuaded to support such an overhaul, Mr. Villarreal said, is if he could claim credit for a historic achievement, rather than an incremental fix.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis president likes to do his own thing,\u201d Mr. Villarreal said. \u201cThe way this administration has rolled down the line, I think there\u2019s going to be a whole revamping of this process.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n

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In the meantime, the administration is taking actions that could constrain the work force on farms, construction sites, production lines and resort properties in a way that may become impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n

Although the pace of deportations has so far been slow, the White House has been ending temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of people who entered the country in recent years, and marshaling resources to round them up.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs more and more people lose their work permits, they get deported or they don\u2019t go to work because they\u2019re afraid to leave their house, more and more employers are going to be screaming,\u201d said Richard Herman, an immigration attorney in Cleveland.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n

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Seasonal employers have become increasingly dependent on guest visas in recent years. The H-2A program for agricultural workers is uncapped, and the Department of Labor certified about 385,000 positions last year, up from 258,000 in 2019. (The State Department usually ends up issuing visas for about 80 percent of the certified positions.) Florida, which requires the use of E-Verify to block undocumented workers from employment, uses more visas than any other state; crops like citrus employ H-2A workers almost exclusively.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n

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Steve Scaroni, who owns a company that provides H-2A workers to growers in California and Arizona, said he had seen a small uptick in demand from clients, adding that he was \u201ccautiously optimistic\u201d that Mr. Trump\u2019s stepped-up enforcement efforts would send more business his way. But H-2A workers can replace only so many of the 283,000 or so undocumented immigrants who currently work in agriculture.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf all of a sudden people start asking me for H-2A workers, I will hit my ceiling, because I won\u2019t have enough housing,\u201d Mr. Scaroni said. \u201cAll my competitors that do H-2A, we\u2019re all in the same boat. There is a limit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The H-2B program, which provides seasonal workers to industries other than agriculture, does have a cap. Applications for the approximately 130,000 slots available annually \u2014 if the White House fully allocates the 64,716 visas on top of the 66,000 allowed by statute \u2014 have far outstripped demand in recent years, and are distributed through a lottery. In 2024, the Labor Department certified applications for 243,798 positions after determining that domestic workers were not available to fill them.<\/p>\n

The industries that depend on the program want the cap removed, or at least for it not to count against workers who return year after year.<\/p>\n

Right now, those making the rounds on Capitol Hill are finding little appetite to engage on the specifics of legal immigration reform. Republican lawmakers are waiting for a signal from the White House, which so far has offered little indication of its preferences.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot will say they stand with us, but are waiting for the president to give them some sort of direction,\u201d said George Carrillo, the chief executive of the Hispanic Construction Council. \u201cThe moment he can say something positive, we have to jump on it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks, managers of the nation\u2019s resorts, plant nurseries, fish processors and racetracks started getting very worried. The Trump administration had yet to release a batch of H-2B visas \u2014 those available for seasonal businesses that often can\u2019t find enough workers domestically to fulfill demand. Usually, the Department of Homeland Security releases them a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-market","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}