President Bush Signs H-2B Bill into Law

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) announces that last night President Bush signed H.R. 1268, the "Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act," which provides funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This bill also contains the "Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act of 2005," which would provide cap exemptions for service sector guest workers who participated in the H-2B visa program in any of the last three years.

"This legislation was made possible by the tireless grass roots efforts of ANLA members and other service sector employers," said John Meredith, ANLA's director of legislative relations. According to Meredith, "this legislation rewards those firms relying on the only legal channel to obtain seasonal help." The passage of the H-2B legislation means that employers will have access to a foreign labor "safety net" despite the 66,000 worker cap being hit in January of 2005. Employers depend on these seasonal workers to make up shortfalls in the domestic workforce.

According to bill language, employers will be able to file new H-2B visa petitions with the Immigration Service starting May 25. Any worker who has had an H-2B visa in any one of the last three years will be exempt from the H-2B cap (this fiscal year and next). The burden of proof needed to certify that status will fall on the employer. There will be opportunities for new H-2B workers to come and work this year based on the number of exempt workers currently working in the program. Additional instructions on certification, filing dates and special filing requirements, will be issued shortly by the Department of Homeland Security. ANLA and other coalition partners are working to ensure that implementation starts as quickly as possible.

Other details of the legislation are as follows:

• The cap fix portion of the legislation also provides for equitable distribution of workers subject to the cap by allowing half of the statutory cap in the country in the during the first six months of the fiscal year and the other half during the second half of the year.
• Creates an additional fee to insure against fraud by program users.
• Requires agencies to report to certain information regarding the visas to Congress semi-annually.

The legislation, which will provide service sector employers temporary relief from the H-2B program's statutory cap of 66,000 seasonal workers, was aided by the relentless support of the H-2B Workforce Coalition, a "super coalition" of program stakeholder industries co-chaired by ANLA and the National Restaurant Association (NRA).