United States: H-2B Cap Reached for Additional Returning Workers for Early Second Half of FY 2024

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has received enough petitions to reach the cap for the additional 19,000 H-2B visas made available for returning workers for the early second half of fiscal year (FY) 2024 with start dates from April 1 to May 14, 2024, under the H-2B supplemental cap temporary final rule. April 17, 2024 was the final receipt date for petitions requesting supplemental H-2B visas under the FY 2024 early second half returning worker allocation.

USCIS is still accepting petitions for H-2B nonimmigrant workers for the additional 20,000 visas allotted for nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, and Costa Rica (country-specific allocation) who are exempt from the returning worker requirement, as well as those who are exempt from the congressionally mandated cap. Information on the 20,000 visas set aside for nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, and Costa Rica is available on the USCIS webpage relating to the Temporary Increase in H-2B Nonimmigrant Visas for FY 2024.

Filing dates for late second half of FY 2024 supplemental visas

Starting April 22, 2024, USCIS will begin accepting petitions for workers for the late second half of FY 2024, requesting employment start dates from May 15 to September 30, 2024. The 5,000 visas made available under this allocation are limited to returning workers who were issued H-2B visas or held H-2B status in fiscal years 2021, 2022, or 2023, regardless of country of nationality.

Background

On November 17, 2023, the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Labor (DOL) jointly published a temporary final rule, increasing the numerical limit (or cap) on H-2B nonimmigrant visas by up to 64,716 additional visas for all of FY 2024. These supplemental visas are available only to U.S. businesses that are suffering irreparable harm or will suffer impending irreparable harm without the ability to employ all the H-2B workers requested in their petition, as attested by the employer on the DOL Form ETA 9142-B-CAA-8. These supplemental H-2B visas are for U.S. employers seeking to petition for additional workers at certain periods of the fiscal year.

Additional information on the FY 2024 supplemental visas is available on the USCIS’s Temporary Increase in H-2B Nonimmigrant Visas for FY 2024 webpage.

This alert is for informational purposes only. If you have any questions, please contact the immigration professional with whom you work at Fragomen.