Bad news for H-2B visa applicants! USCIS issues new alert; India not affected

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on Wednesday that it has received enough petitions to reach the cap for the additional 19,000 H-2B visas made available for returning workers for the early second half of fiscal year 2025.

However, the agency added that 20,000 visas are set aside for nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, and Costa Rica.
These countries are exempt from the returning working requirement.

The USCIS said that it has reached the cap for additional H-2B visas for FY 2025(Unsplash)
“As of April 18, 2025, USCIS has received enough petitions to reach the additional 19,000 H-2B visas made available for returning workers for the early second half of FY 2025 with start dates from April 1 to May 14, 2025, under the FY 2025 H-2B supplemental cap temporary final rule,” the USCIS said its notification on Wednesday.
The immigration service said that it will reject any cap-subject petitions received after April 18.

Indians unaffected
However, Indians are unaffected as they do not qualify for the H-2B visa, which allows foreign workers to make a temporary move to the US to perform ‘non-agricultural services or labor on a one-time, seasonal, peak load, or intermittent basis’.

According to the USCIS, US businesses that are suffering ‘irreparable harm or will suffer impending irreparable harm (permanent and severe financial loss) if they cannot employ all the H-2B workers that they request on their Form I-129 petition may file H-2B petitions under this temporary increase’.
“In addition, employers may only request workers who have been issued an H-2B visa or otherwise granted H-2B status in FY 2022, 2023, or 2024, unless they are petitioning for workers under the 20,000 country-specific allocation,” the website states.

Currently, the H-2B cap is set at 66,000 per fiscal year, which is equally divided in half for the first half (October 1 - March 31) and second half (April 1 - September 30)

Source :- https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/bad-news-for-h-2b-visa-applicants-uscis-issues-new-alert-india-not-affected-101745457895688.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com