Amid crab industry labor shortage, Maryland Rep. Harris says approval of 15,000 guest worker visas 'imminent'

Federal immigration officials have agreed to approve 15,000 new guest worker visas for seasonal work, including in a Maryland crab industry grappling with a significant labor shortage, U.S. Rep. Andy Harris said Thursday.

U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services would not confirm any changes to its H-2B visa program, which brings 66,000 immigrants to the country for work that employers can show they are unable to hire Americans to do.

But Maryland's lone Republican congressman said the expected approval was imminent, and that he is working with President Donald Trump's administration to find a way to raise the cap on the visas or to allow Maryland seafood businesses to employ workers through a different visa program.

Still, he acknowledged that the 15,000 additional visas "is probably not going to be adequate."

"I applaud the administration for issuing new visas," he said in an interview. "I'm going to work with the administration to make sure we can reform the program so we can have an adequate number of workers next year."

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Robin Hall at G.W. Hall & Son's fresh seafood on the Eastern Shore. The Hall brothers were chosen through a visa lottery to get temporary migrant help, but they are still concerned about the industry and residents suffering. (Karl Merton Ferron, Baltimore Sun)

The visa program was overwhelmed with demand this year, leaving Eastern Shore seafood processing plants without 40 percent of their typical work force, which picks the crabs and produces the meat used in restaurants and sold in supermarkets.

Harris said efforts to raise the visa cap have been stalled amid concerns from labor unions, who argue companies are exploiting foreign workers and lowering prevailing wages for Americans.

He said if efforts to find a compromise on reforms to the H-2B program fail, he has also talked with the administration about finding a way to classify seafood workers and also canning industry workers under the federal H-2A visa program. Those visas are used for seasonal agricultural work and are not subject to a cap.

Crab processors say the current H-2B visa limit is inadequate.

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"Sixty-six thousand visas is not hardly a football stadium of people for this whole country," said Bryan Hall, of G.W. Hall & Son on Hooper's Island in Dorchester County. "It's ridiculous."

They also said that approving 15,000 more for the nation will not be enough. They were pessimistic that their share of those visas would make a difference once crab harvesting picks up later this month.

When 33,000 visas were awarded in February for work from April through September, immigration officials picked the winners and losers by a lottery for the first time because of unprecedented demand — employers were seeking 47,000 visas.

If the next round of visas is again awarded by lottery, crab houses that lost once aren't necessarily expecting their luck to change and to solve their problem.

"I don't play the lottery and I don't like it done this way," said Harry Phillips, owner of Russell Hall Seafood on Hooper's Island. "It's all by luck whether you get picked or not. It's not a professional way to do it."

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Women pick crabs in Crisfield in 1945. (The Baltimore Sun)

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Originally Published: May 03, 2018 at 2:10 pm