With a busy tourism season looming, some Maine businesses are breathing a sigh of relief as the federal government resumes processing applications to hire summer workers from outside the country — at least for now.
The H2B visa program which allows businesses to use foreign seasonal workers where there's a shortage of local labor had been in limbo after a March 4 court ruling in Florida found that the U.S. Labor Department lacked the authority to regulate the program.
A motion was filed — and granted Tuesday — for a 30-day stay of the ruling to give applicants a chance to complete the process, until April 15, and the Department of Homeland Security and the Labor Department time to tackle the dispute.
"We dodged a bullet, there's no question about that," says Greg Dugal of the Maine Innkeepers Association. He says roughly 10 percent of his members rely on foreign workers to handle the summer rush.
"Hopefully they'll get most of the people done by April 15 and hopefully they'll write this new rule by then so there's no interruption, but if I was involved in the program I would hope like hell that I got my certification before the 15th of April because, who knows?" he says.
The issue surrounding the H2B visa program arose after a Florida man filed suit saying that immigration authorities should regulate the program, not the Department of Labor.
About 66,000 of the seasonal foreign worker visas are issued each year.
