The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced late last year the release of more
than 64,000 supplemental H-2B visas for fiscal year 2024 in an
effort to match ever-increasing labor demands. Consistent with
congressional authorization to add up to 64,716 H-2B visas under a
discretionary annual cap based upon labor market needs, the
additional H-2B visas will elevate the total to more than 130,000,
including the regular annual limitation of 66,000.
As in prior years, the temporary final rule (TFR)
will allocate a subset of the supplemental visas, 20,000 this year,
to temporary workers from El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and
Honduras. The announcement noted that the country-specific
allocation intends to act in concert with efforts to reduce
economic migration from the region, and now includes temporary
workers from Colombia, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. The TFR reserves
the remaining 44,716 supplemental visas for returning H-2B workers
employed in the U.S. in the
