Although the new year has just begun, the H-2B Visa Cap has basically already been reached for the first half of fiscal year (FY) 2023. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has recently set in motion their acceptance of H-2B petitions under the temporary final rule which increased the cap by approximately 65,000 additional nonimmigrant visas, among which nearly 45,000 were primarily for returning workers while the other 20,000 are to be assigned to immigrants mainly from Central America.
According to statements brought forward from USCIS, the number of petitions received by the agency has reached the limit for the additional 18,216 H-2B visas for returning workers that will be granted for the first half of fiscal year 2023 with start dates on or before March 31st, 2023, as per the recently announced H-2B supplemental cap temporary final rule. However, the extra 20,000 visas authorized for citizens of Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are still open for applications for H-2B nonimmigrant workers.
USCIS recommends that even working petitioners who were not accepted originally should try to file under the El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras allocation considering some visas are still available. According to calculated data, only about 4,000 were accounted for leaving nearly 16,000 visas available.
