Robert Helland, GCSAA director of congressional and federal affairs, joined landscape professionals, the hospitality industry and other users of the H-2B visa program on March 21 to lobby Congress on issues facing the H-2B visa program.  There are a number of ongoing concerns with the implementation of the H-2B visa program, the most immediate being the fate of the Returning Worker Exemption (RWE), which allows those H-2B visa workers returning to work in the United States within the past three years of receiving a H-2B visa to not count against the 66,000 annual cap.  Helland was there to make sure Congress understood how important the H-2B visa program was to golf and urge them to do everything possible to preserve the program over the short and long term.

The need for relief from the 66,000 cap is evident.  As noted previously, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service received a sufficient number of petitions on Jan. 10 to reach the halfway mark (33,000) for the first half of FY 2017. Subsequently, the 33,000 H-2B cap for the second half of FY 2017 was reached on March 13. Without cap relief, many seasonal employers – including golf -  can’t find the workers they need to meet customer demand. 

Congress included cap relief – through the RWE - in the FY16 spending bill that ended on Sept. 30, 2016.  Unfortunately, the RWE was not renewed in the continuing resolutions since then, including the resolution that funds the federal government through April 28.^.  Helland met with a number of offices in the House and Senate to help make the argument that Congress needs to include the RWE in both the spending bill funding the remainder of government operations through Sept. 30and for the upcoming fiscal year. 

Studies have shown that every H-2B worker creates or sustains 4.64 American jobs, on average. GCSAA will continue to make the argument to Congress that small and seasonal businesses, like golf, need access to a stable H-2B visa program.