About H-2B
The H-2B nonimmigrant visa program allows employers to hire foreign workers for temporary or seasonal non-agricultural jobs when they cannot find enough U.S. workers.
Employers must apply for permission from the U.S. government to hire foreign individuals as H-2B nonimmigrants. They can employ non-U.S. citizens as long as similarly employed U.S. workers' wages and working conditions are not adversely affected by the employment of foreign workers. The H-2B visa does not offer the workers a path to lawful permanent residence or citizenship.
Typical H-2B Occupations
The H-2B visa is not associated with a particular industry or job type. Although there is no exhaustive list of jobs that qualify for the program, it has been geared towards labor-intensive, low-wage occupations that do not require advanced degrees. This list represents the top 10 H-2B jobs in 2024.
Landscaping and Groundskeeping
90,121
Maids & Housekeeping Cleaners
19,138
Forest and Conservation Workers
14,934
Amusement & Recreation Attendants
12,398
Cooks, Restaurant
11,515
Construction Laborers
9,210
Meat, Poultry and Fish Cutters & Trimmers
9,116
Waiters and Waitresses
7,294
Fast Food and Counter Workers
6,693
Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners
4,621
*Numbers represent visas issued in 2024
Worker Protections
Wages: The program regulations require employers to pay prevailing wage rates calculated by the Department of Labor according to job type and location. Employers must also provide workers with a copy of the job order when they are recruited, which includes the terms and conditions of the job. However, there is no requirement that workers be provided with employment contracts that are enforceable in court.
Worker Expenses and Reimbursement: Regulations require employers to reimburse their H-2B workers for the costs of their visa application in the first paycheck, and to pay their inbound and outbound transportation expenses.
Guaranteed Hours: Employers must guarantee that the worker will be provided with full-time work hours and at least be paid for 75% of the total number of hours outlined in the job order.
No Job Relocating: Employers may not place H-2B workers outside the geographic area of intended employment or planned itinerary that is listed on the job order.
Recent Updates
Recent rule changes promulgated by the Department of Homeland Security in December of 2024 will change some important aspects of the H-2B program. These rule changes extend the grace periods in which an H-2B worker can legally be in the country both before and after the stated work period, enhance whistleblower protections for workers, and extend the period given to a worker whose contract is revoked to find a new job, among other changes.
H-2B by the Numbers
Issues
Labor Abuse
H-2B workers disproportionately lack control in their employment and are thus vulnerable to exploitation. As with other temporary work visas, lawful immigration status for H-2B workers is tied to a specific employer. H-2B workers also cannot switch jobs without permission. As a result, H-2B workers are effectively tethered to a single employer and vulnerable to abuse.
Fraud: Recruitment fraud and abuse are very common in the H-2B program. International recruiters often charge workers illegal fees as a condition of employment. Fraudulent recruiters also require payment for non-existent jobs, leaving prospective H-2B workers with debt and lost payments and no job to show for it. It can be difficult to verify whether an employment offer or job posting is legitimate, especially for workers.
Illegal Recruitment Fees: The law prohibits prospective workers from paying fees to a recruiter. Nonetheless, it is common for recruiters to charge workers high fees in exchange for connecting them with employment in the United States.
Wage Theft: Employers, intentionally or accidentally, may fail to properly record hours or neglect to ensure that their workers are paid the promised prevailing wage rate. Worker reimbursements are also hard to track and enforce. Data suggest that H-2B workers remain underpaid.
Retaliation: Recruiters and employers take advantage of workers’ poor access to information and often make false threats. H-2B visa holders, non-governmental organizations, and labor investigators have reported that employers and recruiters threaten workers with job loss, blacklisting, and deportation for complaining or asking for clarification about their rights.
Human Trafficking: There are unfortunately many instances of H-2B workers becoming victims of human trafficking. Employers have confiscated passports and visas and/or threatened workers with deportation to keep them in situations of forced labor.
Portable Justice: The H-2B program does not set up a way for workers to enforce their rights or denounce abuses when they return home. Access to the U.S. legal system after leaving the U.S. is complicated for workers; their physical distance raises challenges for their participation in legal action.
Documented Cases of Abuse
Vazquez v. Karageorgis
Plaintiffs were trafficked into the United States through the federal government’s H-2B guestworker program to provide manual labor on behalf of Defendants Peter’s Fine Greek Food Inc., as it engaged in the business of food concessions as part of the traveling carnival business. Defendants exploited and defrauded Plaintiffs by fraudulently recruiting them to work in the United States under false contractual promises, only to subject them to psychological coercion, threats of serious harm, abhorrent working conditions, deplorably low wages, and threatened abuse of the legal process to maintain control over Plaintiffs. After being transported from Mexico, the Plaintiffs were made to sleep in overcrowded and bedbug-infested trailers as the Defendants moved through locations in various states. Defendants also confiscated Plaintiffs’ passports and threatened deportation, excluding Plaintiffs’ ability to ever return to the United States to work. Defendants required Plaintiffs to work excessively long hours in performing their duties, typically working seventeen (17) hour days, for many days in a row, without compensation of the minimum wage and overtime pay for all hours worked, and without timely compensation. To the extent the Plaintiffs were paid at all, it was months later and at a wage rate ranging from $1.00 per hour to $3.00 per hour.
Carillo v. Colamussi
Plaintiffs were fraudulently induced into traveling to the United States under the H-2B guest worker program to work for Defendant Colamussi’s restaurant in Long Island, New York in Colamussi was the owner of Historical Thatched Cottage Caterers, Inc. From 2011 through 2012, Defendants fraudulently misled Plaintiffs over the terms and conditions of their employment, and they required them to incur substantial debts. Plaintiffs were forced to borrow money to pay all of the Defendants’ fees. When the Plaintiffs finally arrived in the United States, they were forced to reside in unsafe and inadequately heated housing, monitored constantly, threatened regularly, and deprived of their contractually mandated compensation. Defendants controlled Plaintiffs by threatening to deport them, or by falsely promising that they could extend their immigration statuses or even grant new ones. Because of these abuses, Plaintiffs suffered from disrupted sleep, ongoing feelings of fear, nightmares, difficulty developing trust, anxiety, and depression.
Abraham v. Singh
Defendants were accused of abusing 221 Indian citizens with H2-B visas, by fraudulently inducing them with promises to work in Louisiana. Around November 16, 2000, the Defendants traveled to India, Dubai, and Singapore, where they recruited the Plaintiffs. The Defendants promised the Plaintiffs full-time employment in Louisiana, with medical benefits, health insurance, wages that began at $14.00 per hour, and permanent resident status. For these jobs, the Defendants demanded an upfront payment from each Plaintiff; the Defendants ultimately received around $7,000 and $20,000 from each Plaintiff. Additionally, the Defendants told the Plaintiffs that the company would secure permanent residency for each Plaintiff after the Plaintiffs paid up-front fees and committed to work for two to three years. After obtaining H-2B visas from American Consular officials in India, Dubai, and Singapore, the Defendants brought the Plaintiffs to New Orleans and Houma, Louisiana. Upon arrival, the Defendants took the Plaintiffs' travel documents and passports and told the Plaintiffs that there was not any work. Instead, the Defendants housed the Plaintiffs in a hotel in Houma, Louisiana, and kept them there—with little food and no medical attention—until they found them jobs. Some Plaintiffs were then sent to work at Quality Shipyards, but they were paid much less than the promised hourly rate. The Defendants deducted “fees” from the Plaintiffs paychecks, and they forced the Plaintiffs to work off their “debts” through physical intimidation, brandishing weapons, confiscating their passports, and threatening deportation. When some Plaintiffs became desperate to work, the Defendants told them to find their own jobs—a violation of the H-2B visa requirement. Consequently, some Plaintiffs were arrested by immigration officers. Ultimately, after all the physical and emotional intimidation and the imposition of arbitrary debts, the Defendants were able to traffic the Plaintiffs out as temporary workers to various jobs. The Plaintiffs’ families in India began receiving threats from creditors, and some family members warned some Plaintiffs that they would be killed if they returned home. The Plaintiffs suffered extraordinary harm—some begged for leftovers at local restaurants, some became destitute, and some became homeless.
Briones v. JNS Construction Services, LLC
Sixty-nine Mexican citizens, brought a lawsuit against Defendants, after being admitted to the United States through the H-2B temporary foreign worker visa program and being subjected to forced labor and abuse in violation of several federal and state-law claims. In order to work for the Defendants, each Plaintiff was required to pay $400 as a recruitment fee and $250 for travel to the United States. The plaintiffs were told that they would be working in the Midwest in the drywall industry. But when Plaintiffs arrived to Colorado, they were housed there, not paid, and left without any kind of living assistance. Moreover, Defendants did not abide by the H-2B requirements, regularly paying them substantially less than their stated wage. Plaintiffs were forced to stay in hotels for an average of 80 hours per week, were restricted in travel and communication, and were generally threatened and abused regularly.
Recommendations
Portability
An H-2B worker is unable to unilaterally transfer to a different employer once they are in the United States, as the H-2B immigration status is dependent on employment with the original sponsoring employer.
The government should provide H-2B workers with visa portability, allowing workers to change employment from among the employers holding Temporary Labor Certifications. Authorizing visa portability will force abusive or exploitative employers to improve worker treatment or risk losing those workers to more law-abiding employers.
Transparency
The government should publish a singular data set disclosing the basic terms and conditions of employment, inclusive of all categories of H-2B workers and require that information be made publicly available. This information would give the government and advocates the data needed to comprehensively analyze the H-2B visa program for fraud and identify potential victims of trafficking and forced labor.
Currently, anti-trafficking advocates and researchers must try to access data through an inefficient and burdensome FOIA request process, which drains their resources as well as those of the government.
Greater transparency would drastically improve the ability of anti trafficking advocates to protect vulnerable migrants before and after they arrive in the United States.
Oversight
Congress should appropriate funds to labor law enforcement agencies sufficient to enforce laws and regulations governing the H-2B program. Those agencies should have dedicated, highly trained staff to pursue investigations and inspections into potential exploitation or violations. There should be enough investigators to conduct random inspections at H-2B worksites sufficient to detect and ultimately dissuade noncompliance by H-2B employers.