Donald Trump’s administration quietly rolled back a less ambitious visa program and restored quotas after they were reduced, as the president’s private businesses rely heavily on workers who come to the U.S. on the visas. While the H-1B visa program has been criticized for abuse and fraud, the H-2B visa program allows guest workers to come to the United States to work for a limited period of time. These apply to non-agricultural workers employed by hotels and similar companies. wall street journal According to reports, at the end of last year, the government announced that it would cut H-2B visas in half. But after a key meeting in Florida in January, the administration quietly reinstated existing quotas. Bernd Lembcke, Trump’s former manager at Mar-a-Lago, and Peter Petrina, a longtime Mar-a-Lago member, convinced the president that the hotel industry needed more workers ahead of the winter and spring travel seasons. Trump businesses also rely on the visa program to hire temporary foreign workers. Reports say Trump took the lobbying seriously and called his advisers to ask them to expand funding for the H-2B visa program. When The Wall Street Journal contacted the White House about the rapid changes to the H-2B visa program, they said they were doing so because of the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration by terminating the temporary legal status of more than 1 million immigrants and stripping them of work authorization. “The Trump administration’s top priority is protecting American jobs and wages while fully meeting the needs of President Trump’s rapid economic growth,” White House spokesman Tyler Rogers said.
What is an H-2B visa?
Since 2016, Congress has allocated 33,000 visas for the winter and summer recruiting seasons, for a total of 66,000. The law allows the president to nearly double that number if he determines the economy can use additional visa slots.The program was adopted by landscape architects, fishing and resort towns because they couldn’t find enough Americans willing to work just a few months a year. The Trump administration announced on December 31 that it would issue only 35,000 additional visas in fiscal year 2026, far below the nearly 65,000 visa limit allowed by Congress. Two weeks after the January meeting at Trump’s Florida golf club, the administration changed course and said it would approve an additional 64,716 H-2B visas this fiscal year, the Wall Street Journal reported.