President Biden has signed a $1.5-trillion omnibus spending bill that funds the federal government for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2022, which ends Sept. 30. This law provides the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with the authority to issue more than 40,000 additional H-2B visas to help golf courses and other seasonal employers this spring. It represents a major step forward in helping golf in a tight labor market.

Congress should have passed this legislation on Oct. 1, 2021, as required under the Constitution. Instead, Congress passed a number of stopgap spending bills to buy time as it worked towards a final deal. Their tardiness, however, provided golf and its allies with the chance to lobby for even more H-2B visas than the normal 33,000 that are available twice a year. GCSAA consistently informed decision makers in Congress and DHS about the uptick in play during the pandemic and how superintendents were struggling to find the men and women they needed to manage their courses.

There has already been some progress: On Jan. 27, DHS announced that 20,000 additional visas were available for workers with a start of employment on or before March 31, 2022 (i.e., during the first half of the 2022 fiscal year).

Now there is opportunity to secure even more visas, and hopefully in time for the spring season. The law provides DHS with the authority to issue as many as 44,000 visas. GCSAA and its allies will lobby DHS hard to make sure the maximum amount of visas are released in time to help golf course management.