Prioritizing Help to Businesses Act This bill authorizes additional H-2B visas for temporary nonagricultural workers in states with relatively low unemployment. Currently, such visas are capped nationally at 66,000 a year. For positions in states that had a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 3.5% or lower in at least three of the six most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly reports issued in the previous fiscal half year, a certain number of H-2B visas may be issued that do not count against the 66,000 per year cap. For such exempted H-2B visas, a state may receive each year no more than 125% of the number of visas for aliens working in the state in the last completed fiscal year or 2,500, whichever is less.
Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. (text: CR S956)
Immigration
Foreign laborTemporary and part-time employmentUnemploymentVisas and passports
Prioritizing Help to Businesses Act
USA117th CongressS-495| Senate
| Updated: 3/1/2021
Prioritizing Help to Businesses Act This bill authorizes additional H-2B visas for temporary nonagricultural workers in states with relatively low unemployment. Currently, such visas are capped nationally at 66,000 a year. For positions in states that had a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 3.5% or lower in at least three of the six most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly reports issued in the previous fiscal half year, a certain number of H-2B visas may be issued that do not count against the 66,000 per year cap. For such exempted H-2B visas, a state may receive each year no more than 125% of the number of visas for aliens working in the state in the last completed fiscal year or 2,500, whichever is less.