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DOL needs to play catch-up following shutdown backlogs in H-2A processing

An ag labor specialist says the government shutdown has caused lasting impacts for farmers who needed H-2A guest worker visas to be processed.

Sarah Black with Great Lakes Ag Labor Services tells Brownfield, “Now you’re looking at potential delays of the workers getting here on time because it is such a rigid process and it is a process that has a lot of steps that are time specific.”

“I think what’s to be seen yet is how will these federal agencies, the Department of Labor (DOL), etcetera, handle the backlog,” she says.

Black says bringing some DOL staff back before the government fully reopened speaks the complications of having multiple agencies involved in the approval process.

“You can’t wait for workers for 30 days when lettuce is ready to go,” she says. “It’s really had a detrimental effect for a lot of areas of the country that needed their workers. The 40-day delay, what that meant is no applications were filed. Nothing. Basically, no work was getting done.”

Several agricultural organizations pressed the Office of Management and Budget to authorize the department to allow H-2A certifications during the shutdown, saying the amount of food loss and supply disruption that will result from further delays warranted emergency action.

Black says reforms just before the shutdown should help the program become less costly and cumbersome moving forward.

Great Lakes Ag Labor Services helps farmers across the region work through the H-2A guest worker process.