The US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it has received enough petitions to meet the H-2B visa cap for the first half of fiscal year 2025.
Long-term care providers sometimes employ workers through the program as short-term personal care aides, nursing assistants and home health aides.
Congress currently caps the program at 66,000 visas per fiscal year, with 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the first half of the fiscal year, which ends March 31, and 33,000 (plus any unused numbers from the first half of the fiscal year) for workers who begin employment in the second half of the fiscal year.
Sept. 18 was the final receipt date for new cap-subject H-2B worker petitions requesting an employment start date before April 1. The agency is still accepting applications from current H-2B workers in the United States who extend their stay, change employers or change the terms and conditions of their employment.
Long-term care industry advocates long have suggested that foreign nurses could be a solution to the sector’s workforce crisis, but US immigration policies make it difficult to recruit a sufficient number of immigrants, who already comprise 20% of registered nurses and 15% of licensed practical nurses working in nursing homes.
According to a recent report from LeadingAge, “current immigration policies stand in the way of bolstering the long-term service and supports workforce. To that end, the national association suggests that the government increase annual caps for employment-based visas, eliminate the per-country limit for employment-based immigration and shorten the time required for employment authorization.”
