The Latest in Ag Labor: H-2A Gets Easier, Lawsuit Over H-2B

Posted by Brian Sparks|August 2, 2020

AmericanHort’s Craig Regelbrugge is, perhaps more than anyone else in the horticulture industry, on top of what’s happening in ag labor laws and regulations. In AmericanHort’s most recent Impact Washington Newsletter, Regelbrugge provided the following updates:

Expanded H-2A Information Available through USDA Web Portal

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue has announced new features on USDA’s Farmers.gov website designed to help facilitate the employment of H-2A workers. The primary new H-2A features on Farmers.gov include:

A real-time dashboard that enables growers to track the status of their eligible employer application and visa applications for temporary nonimmigrant workers
Streamlining the login information so if a grower has an existing login.gov account, they can save multiple application tracking numbers for quick look-up at any time
Enables easy access to the Department of Labor’s Foreign Labor Application Gateway
Allows growers to track time-sensitive actions taken in the course of Office of Foreign Labor Certification’s (OFLC) adjudication of temporary labor certification applications
Provides access to all application forms online.

All information can be found at Farmers.gov/manage/h2a, as well as an update on the H-2A and the Paycheck Protection Program.

Business Group Sues Trump Administration

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeking to overturn restrictions recently placed on several categories of employment visas, including H-1B and H-2B visas. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco on July 21, argues that President Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he temporarily halted admissions under these and other visas by presidential proclamation. The move potentially affects hundreds of thousands of people seeking to work in the U.S.

The case is Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 20-cv-04887, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.