A total of 22,000 supplemental H-2B visas are expected to be offered in the coming months. In late April, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) reached a deal to lift the existing 66,000 annual cap, which has already been exhausted. Here’s a summary of an update from Andrew Bray, VP of government relations with the National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP), found on the NALP site: These additional visas are a result of the discretionary authority granted to DHS by Congress in the FY 21 Appropriations. The official rule has not been published and many details remain unknown with regards to: timing; how DHS/DOL will handle another lottery; and if DHS/DOL will require any additional recruiting of U.S. workers. We do know that 6,000 of the 22,000 will be set aside to go exclusively to guest workers from the Northern Triangle Central American countries (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras). Bray continues later in the statement: The announcement is a bittersweet win for the landscape industry. We fought for months to include the language in the FY 21 appropriations to grant DHS the discretionary authority. We then fought for months after the cap was hit in February to urge DHS to act. And now the results of our efforts are 22,000 additional visas that would never have materialized without our efforts. We wish that the number was larger and had come sooner, but for historical perspective the Trump Administration did the following over the last ...