USA Green Card Immigration Blog

A new rule for the temporary agricultural workers of US under the H-2A Program has been announced by Hilda L.Solis the U.S. Secretary of Labor. The final rule is published in the 12th edition of the Federal register. The rule speaks about establishing the process of labor certification as well as enforcement mechanism for the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program.

The H-2A temporary agricultural worker program is applicable only for those foreign workers who are either coming to or are already working in the U.S for seasonal or temporary agricultural works. The H-2A nonimmigrant visa would not be granted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security unless the Department of Labor certifies that there are not sufficient qualified U.S workers to perform the agricultural works.

The U.S Department of Homeland Security through its wage and hour division would try to implement the terms and conditions of the labor certification and hence protect the workers. About 8,150 labor certification applications was filed by employers in which 103,955 H-2A workers were asked for temporary agricultural work, during the 2009 Fiscal year. 94 percent of the applications submitted for a total of 86,014 workers were certified by the department of labor.

Ms. Solis, the secretary emphasizes the right of the workers to get a fair pay for their work and also stresses on the opportunities that those workers can avail to. She further adds that through the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program, they can keep a check on the different forms of worker violations.

This final rule is the outcome of the revision of previous H-2A regulations which was published in late 2008.The access to the The H-2A nonimmigrant visa covers many benefits for workers such as increased wages, a better access to the domestic labor market, protection against worker’s abuses, and creating a national electronic job registry.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 21st, 2010 at 6:18 am and is filed under immigration law, Jobs/Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.