CAMBRIDGE, Md. The Department of Homeland Security announced an additional twenty thousand seasonal guest-worker visas known as H-2B visas will soon be available. This announcement means a lot to foreign workers and businesses but immigration experts say it's not enough.
"Next year, there will be more opportunities to come back," said Clara Sonia Lopez Martinez, a Cambridge crab picker from Mexico.
Every year, Lopez Martinez visits Delmarva on an H-2B visa in pursuit of greater opportunities and pay than back home in Mexico.
Happy to hear that the chances of her being able to return to Delmarva for the New Year are in her favor.Â
"In Mexico, wages are low and everything is expensive. With this program, we can help our families and give them a better quality of life. Some of the women in the program are single mothers and are able to provide for their kids back home." said Lopez Martinez.
The announcement of the Department of Homeland Security to grant 20,000 additional H2B visas comes during a time when many businesses face a shortage of employees.
Seafood companies in Delmarva say this announcement brings relief.
"We are totally reliant on this program to sustain these seafood processing businesses and as evidenced in prior years, without this program, these businesses either ratchet back their production or totally close," said Jack Brooks, the owner of J.M. Clayton. And although this might be great news for workers across Delmarva with H-2B visas, immigration experts say 20,000 visas are not enough to satisfy the demand. Steven Planzer with
Castaneda Planzer Immigration Law
in Salisbury says this amount is a good start, but 100,000 would satisfy the nationwide demand.
Meanwhile, Lopez Martinez, who just returned to Mexico, tells WRDE that the news made her holidays a little brighter.
And she will take advantage of her time in Mexico to be with the loved ones that she hasn't seen in months.
Until she returns to Delmarva in this promising New Year.
These additional 20,000 visa workers will be set aside for employers looking to hire on or before March 31st of next year.