USCIS Proposes Changes to Improve the H-2B Temporary Non-agricultural Worker Program
WASHINGTON-U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced August 15, 2008 a series of proposed rule changes that will streamline procedures for hiring workers under the H-2B program.
The H-2B nonimmigrant temporary worker program allows U.S. employers to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary non-agricultural temporary jobs for which U.S. workers are not available. The proposed changes to the H-2B program, discussed by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on June 10, will encourage and facilitate the lawful employment of foreign temporary workers while ensuring the integrity of the H-2B program.
The proposed rule is designed to remove unnecessary limitations on H-2B employers while both preventing fraud and abuse and protecting the rights of temporary workers. The proposed rule will:
- Reduce from six months to three months the time H-2B workers must wait outside the United States before they are eligible to re-obtain status under the H or L classification
- Require employer attestations on the scope of the H-2B employment and the use of recruiters to locate H-2B workers
- Crack down on employers and recruiters who impose fees on prospective H-2B workers in connection with or as a condition of an offer of H-2B employment
- Require an approved temporary labor certification in connection with all H-2B petitions
- Preclude, with limited exception, the change of the employment start date after the grant of the temporary labor certification
- Require employers to notify DHS when H-2B workers fail to show up for work, are terminated, or abscond from the worksite
- Change the definition of "temporary employment" to provide that a job is of a temporary nature when the worker will end in the near, definable future and to eliminate the requirement that employers show "extraordinary circumstances" to be eligible to hire H-2B workers where a one-time need for the workers is longer than one year but shorter than three years
- Prohibit the approval of H-2B petitions for nationals of countries that are determined to be consistently refusing or unreasonably delaying repatriation of their nationals
- Establish a land-border exit system pilot program, which requires H-2B workers admitted through a port of entry participating in the pilot H-program to also depart through a participating port and to present designated biographic and/or biometric information upon departure.
USCIS will accept public comments 30 days following publication of the proposed rule in the Federal Register.
