The H-2B visa is for non-agricultural guest workers employed mostly in the hospitality industry in the US.

The Donald Trump administration quietly went back on the less-targeted visa program and restored its quota after reducing it, because the president’s personal businesses largely depend on workers coming to the US on that visa. While the H-1B visa program is notorious for abuse and fraud, the H-2B visa program allows guest workers to come to the US to work for a limited period of time. These are for non-agricultural workers who are employed in hotels and similar companies. wall street journal It was reported that late last year, the administration announced it would cut H-2B visas in half. But the administration quietly returned to the existing quota in January after a key meeting in Florida. Bernd Lembke, former manager of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, and longtime Mar-a-Lago member Peter Petrina convinced the president that the hospitality industry needs more workers ahead of the peak tourist season of winter and spring. Trump’s businesses have also relied on this visa program to hire temporary foreign workers. The report said Trump took lobbying seriously and called his advisers and asked them to expand the allocation of the H-2B visa program. As the WSJ contacted the White House about the expedited change in the H-2B visa program, they said it was done because the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration took away work authorization for more than a million immigrants by terminating their temporary legal status. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said, “The Trump administration’s number one priority is protecting American jobs and wages, as well as adequately responding to President Trump’s demands for a booming economy.”

What is H-2B visa?

Since 2016, Congress allocated 33,000 visas for the winter and summer recruiting seasons, out of a total of 66,000. The law allows the President to nearly double that number if he determines the economy could use the additional visa slots.This program is used by landowners, fisheries and vacation towns because they cannot find enough Americans willing to work for only a few months a year. The Trump administration announced on December 31 that it would grant only 35,000 additional visas for fiscal year 2026, far short of the approximately 65,000 maximum allowed by Congress. Two weeks after the January meeting at Trump’s Florida golf club, the administration changed its stance, saying it would authorize an additional 64,716 H-2B visas for the fiscal year, the WSJ reported.