Yuma, Arizona (3TV/CBS 5) — Farmers in Arizona and across the country say so. H-2A visa program It is essential to attract seasonal workers to come to Arizona and work in the agriculture industry.
This visa program admits thousands of workers each year, but these workers only have a limited amount of time before their visa expires. Each worker's H-2A visa is valid for only her three years. Once it expires, you must leave the United States and wait 90 days in your home country before you can reapply.
This means they won't be able to work for about three months, and Yuma farmers may need to find new employees to get the job done. One producer we spoke to said they have to constantly rotate their list of potential employees to filter out those eligible to work through the visa program.
Alejandro Figueroa helps lead Yuma County.'s legislative efforts would not only extend the cap beyond three years, but also increase the number of H-2A visas issued each year. He said about 8,000 people working on Yuma farms are H-2A visa workers. “These temporary workers will need to return to their home countries, reapply to the program and hopefully be re-admitted,” he said.
He said it is also very costly for farmers who pay for visa applications. If workers have to return home, farmers must invest in training new workers.
Figueroa said he is also working to increase the number of visas issued. “There are thousands of unfilled (sic) jobs in the agriculture industry, and Yuma County and Arizona are no exception,” he said.
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor approved about 370,000 visas, but Figueroa said that's not enough.of American Farm Bureau Federation It is estimated that approximately 2.4 million agricultural jobs are needed annually. “We fully support the ag industry here in Yuma County and want to see it thrive,” Figueroa said.
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