The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it has received enough petitions to reach the cap for an additional 20,716 visas eligible for returning workers for the first half of the fiscal year 2024, with start dates on or before March 31, 2024, under the H-2B supplemental cap temporary final rule (FY 2024).
Through a statement, USCIS announced that January 9, 2024, was the final receipt date for petitions requesting supplemental H-2B visas under the FY 2024 first-half returning worker allocation, VisaGuide.World reports.
We are still accepting petitions for H-2B nonimmigrant workers with start dates on or before March 31, 2024, for the additional 20,000 visas allotted for nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, and Costa Rica (country-specific allocation), and those who are exempt from the congressionally mandated cap, as well as those who are exempt from the congressionally mandated cap.
On November 17, 2023, the Fiscal Year 2024 Temporary Final Rule was released with an immediate effective date.
The USCIS immediately began accepting H-2B petitions for the first half of FY 2024, thus permitting a total of 20,716 returning workers and 20,000 persons from El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Costa Rica, exempt from the returning worker requirement, with initial dates on or before March 31, 2024.
Petitioners with start dates on or before March 31, 2024, whose workers were not accepted for the 20,716 returning worker allocation are encouraged to file under the country-specific allocation while visas remain available.
The USCIS has also announced that as of January 12, 2024, USCIS has received petitions requesting a total of 4,500 workers under the 20,000 visas set aside for individuals from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti, Ecuador, Colombia, and Costa Rica.
In November last year, the USCIS announced that an additional 64,716 temporary nonagricultural worker visas have been made eligible for the fiscal year 2024, in addition to the 66,000 visas that are eligible each year.
Back then, the USCIS announced that the main beneficiaries of the additional visas would be temporary workers engaged in fields such as hospitality, tourism, and landscaping, among others.
The temporary H-2B visa program allows employers in the US to hire noncitizens on a temporary basis to perform nonagricultural labor or services within the US.
While the H-2A visa targets temporary and seasonal agricultural workers, the H-2B program is dedicated to temporary nonagricultural workers.