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Trump administration to allow more foreign temporary workers

The Trump administration said Thursday that it will allow an additional 35,000 temporary foreign workers to come to the U.S. to fill non-farm seasonal jobs amid a tight labor market.

Stephen Faulkner, far left, owner of Faulkner's Landscaping & Nursery, installs an irrigation system alongside workers Gonsalo Garcia, center, and Jalen Murchison, right, at a landscape project in Manchester, N.H.
Stephen Faulkner, far left, owner of Faulkner's Landscaping & Nursery, installs an irrigation system alongside workers Gonsalo Garcia, center, and Jalen Murchison, right, at a landscape project in Manchester, N.H.Read moreElise Amendola / AP
    by The Associated Press, The Associated Press
    Published 

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Thursday that it will allow an additional 35,000 temporary foreign workers to come to the U.S. to fill non-farm seasonal jobs amid a tight labor market.

The additional visas, on top of the 66,000 allowed in each year under U.S. law, is the highest annual total allowed under President Donald Trump.

A total of 10,000 of the additional H-2B visas will be set aside for the first time for people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras because those countries agreed to work with the administration to take in people seeking asylum in the United States along its southern border, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Season workers with H-2B visas are permitted to work in the U.S. for less than a year. They work in such areas as landscaping, construction, hotel and restaurant work and seafood and meat processing plants.

Many American businesses and politicians of both parties have called for an increase, especially amid the tight labor market.

The administration says it will take “significant steps" to address fraud and abuse in the H-2B program and will generally limit the visas to returning workers.