Working visas for foreigners in specialty professions have reached its cap for 2005, but visas for agricultural workers and seasonal non-agricultural workers are still available.
In contrast to H1-B visas, which reached on Friday its cap of 65,000 for fiscal year 2005, immigration officials said there is still time to file H2-A and H2-B visas. The visas give employment to agricultural and non-agricultural seasonal workers.
Immigration officials said H1-B visas are good for up to six years while H2-B visas can be renewed every year for three years.
Bill Strassberger, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman, said there is a cap of 66,000 for H2-B visas while H2-A visas are granted depending on the need for seasonal agricultural workers.
“They are still available,” said Strassberger about H2-B visas. “People can begin to apply a couple of months prior to the fiscal year.”
Since the new fiscal year began Oct. 1, Strassberger said he was not sure how many H2-B visas are still available.
“These are for either skilled and unskilled workers,” Strassberger said. “The petition has to start with the employers.”
Strassberger said H2-B visas have never reached its cap until they ran out of visas for 2004.
“We reached the cap for the first time in March 2004 for fiscal year 2004,” Strassberger said.
Robert Waldrop, chief of consular services at the U.S. Consulate in Matamoros, said the Consulate issued 1,636 H2-B visas in 2003. The same year, 414 H1-B visas and 112 H2-A visas were issued.
Waldrop said most H2-B visas are given to seasonal employees working in construction, landscaping, restaurants and the hotel industry.
“In the world, the most H2-B visas are issued in Monterrey (Mexico),” Waldrop said. “We issue several hundred each year. They are usually for a shorter amount of time (than H1-B visas).”
Waldrop said H2-B visas are usually given through companies requesting several workers at a time.
“The common thing is to have a company that may need 10 or more workers,” Waldrop said.
Before the Consulate approves temporary working visas, Waldrop said applicants’ petitions must be cleared by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“They keep track of how many petitions have been approved,” Waldrop said.
Maria Elena Garcia-Upson, a spokeswoman for CIS in Dallas, said anyone who is legally in the country and wants to change status can apply for a temporary working visa.
If an employer wants to hire an undocumented immigrant, the undocumented immigrants would have to go back to their country of origin and obtain a visa there, Garcia-Upson said.
“They can’t apply, because they are illegally here,” Garcia-Upson said.