Source: MIGRATION NEWS UC DAVIS, 5/19/20


The H-2A program allows farm employers to request certification from the US Department of Labor to recruit and employ foreign workers to fill seasonal farm jobs, generally defined as those lasting up to 10 months. DOL certified 257,666 jobs to be filled with H-2A workers in FY19, when the top five H-2A states, Florida, Georgia, Washington, California, and North Carolina, accounted for over half of all H-2A jobs certified.

The US Department of State issued almost 205,000 H-2A visas in FY19. Mexicans received over 90 percent of H-2A visas, followed by almost three percent for Jamaicans and two percent for Guatemalans.

The H-2A program was expected to expand in the 1990s after the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 imposed federal sanctions on employers who knowingly hired unauthorized workers. Instead, the H-2A program shrank as the Florida sugarcane harvest was mechanized and unauthorized Mexicans arrived in large numbers and presented false documents that satisfied IRCA’s I-9 right-to-work documentation requirements.

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