Legislation that some of Colorado’s seasonal businesses rely on to employ more than 16,000 foreign guest workers through the H-2B visa program could be trapped in a congressional crossfire over immigration.
A coalition of Colorado businesses wants the Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act extended for three years to allow time for Congress to work on comprehensive immigration reform.
Colorado is one of the nation’s largest employers of H-2B seasonal workers, who often return year after year from places such as Jamaica, Mexico and Austria to work in housekeeping and landscaping and at ski areas.
“The jobs that are filled with foreign labor are jobs that U.S. citizens will not take, regardless of compensation,” according to a statement from the Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado, part of the H-2B Workforce Coalition. Other members include the National Ski Areas Association, Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association, and Rocky Mountain Golf Course Superintendent Association.
But Colorado representatives disagree whether the current visa program will be extended before it expires Oct. 1.
The H-2B visa regulations are “one piece of what may be a debate about guest workers down the line,” said Will Adams, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Littleton, on Thursday.
A comprehensive guest-worker program, initially proposed in 2004 by President Bush, is in limbo in Washington, D.C., amid concerns about homeland security, immigration and jobs.
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, supports an extension of the current H-2B visa rules and expects sponsors to attach it to a piece of legislation less controversial than immigration reform, said Lisa B. Cohen, DeGette’s chief of staff. Sponsors of the bill haven’t picked the legislation on which it would piggyback, she added. She said she believes it will probably pass this year.
Currently, temporary workers need H-2B visas, which allow them to work in the United States for less than a year at a time. The government limits the number of new visas it will issue each year to 66,000.
Workers who held the visas at any time in the previous three years qualify for a new one without counting toward the cap.
Employers apply for the visas, and they are issued to foreign workers who can then work only for the company that applied.
One-half of the 66,000 visas become available each year Oct. 1, the rest April 1. Splitting the allotment ensures that businesses that need the workers in the summer can get them, said Cindy Clark, human-resources director at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs.
If the act expires, the 66,000 new visas would be available only in October. There would be no applications for April and no exception made to the quota for those who worked in the country in previous years.
“The concern that is looming for employers is that if this doesn’t get passed, there is a race starting Oct. 1 to see which employers are given those 66,000 visas first. I could almost predict that there would be almost no visas left by the time we get ready to apply,” said Clark.
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at 303-820-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
