On Feb. 15,  GCSAA members Christian Sain, superintendent at The Country Club of Virginia, Scott Kinnan, superintendent at Farmington Country Club, took meetings on Capitol Hill to advocate for expansion of the H-2B Visa worker program. Sain and Kinnan both use the program to employ approximately 65 percent of their workforce, but this year they are in danger of not receiving any workers. 

The H-2B Visa program is used by multiple industries, including golf, to employ seasonal workers in regions facing labor shortages. Due to a longstanding Congressional mandate, the H-2B visa  program is capped at 66,000 visas per fiscal year, divided into two segments, 33,000 for the first half of the fiscal year and 33,000 for the second half. <

The start of 2018 saw a massive influx of applications from employers seeking labor with an April 1 start date. "On Jan. 1, 82,000 applications were submitted for 33,000 visas," Sain said. "Only one of three will be filled and that is just not sufficient."

Sain said that since the inception of the program in the early 1990s, the visa cap has remained the same, while the national GDP has tripled. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the United States GDP has grown from $6 billion in 1990 to more than $19 billion in 2017, putting stress on the visa cap, which hasn't been indexed along the same line.

Kinnan said, "The visa cap has become a burden on the superintendent's ability to employ a reliable and legal workforce."

His facility requested 25 workers with a start date of April 1. To justify the need, employers are required by law to advertise open positions in local media outlets and job boards before being approved for foreign seasonal labor. This season as in previous, Kinnan advertised in local newspapers, online employment engine, and the state's labor website, but to no avail. This year, he received one inquiry to the job postings, which is hardly surprising in Virginia, where the unemployment rates is less than 4 percent.

Without immediate action by Congress, Kinnan could be capped out this year, causing his labor force to drop by at least half. The lawmakers who Sain and Kinnan met with were receptive to their concerns, and they had an opportunity to address the issue in a government funding bill that was voted on this month. <

Without immediate cap relief, the two superintendents may be short staffed for along golf season. Last week, President Trump signed an omnibus package that funds the government through Sept. 30. The bill provides the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of Labor, the authority to raise the FY 2018 H-2B cap when determined that there is an economic need. It limits the total number of H-2B workers that may enter the U.S. during fiscal 2018 to 129,547, potentially raising the cap by 63,547.

Sain, Kinnan and other H-2B users must now shift their attention to working with the administration to encourage the Secretary of Homeland Security to implement this provision more quickly than last year and to consider authorizing more visas than they did last year. In 2017, it took more than 2.5 months after the authorization was signed and only 15,000 additional visas were granted.

Payton Berens, GCSAA government affairs intern.