Senators push Bush for visa relief

If at first you don’t succeed, try asking the president for help.

That’s what Maine’s U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, joining a group of other lawmakers, did late Tuesday when they sent a letter to President George W. Bush asking him to allow more foreign workers into the country to help with the upcoming summer tourism season in the Northeast.

More than 3,000 seasonal jobs are at stake in Maine.

“It’s bicameral and bipartisan,” Collins spokeswoman Jen Burita said Tuesday of the letter.

Specifically, the group of lawmakers asks Bush to issue a temporary emergency order allowing the Department of Homeland Security to process thousands of pending visa applications that were filed after the 66,000-worker cap was reached in March.

The H-2B visas allow U.S. businesses to hire temporary help from other nations when the businesses have a spike in labor demand and cannot find Americans to take the jobs.

Emergency legislation is pending in the U.S. House and Senate to temporarily lift the cap for this year. However, by Tuesday it became clear that the soonest Congress would act would be late April because of the Easter holiday break.

By then, it will be too late for many tourism-related businesses that open Memorial Day weekend.

If DHS processes the visas, then at least if the pending legislation passes, the government can respond quickly, officials said.

“We seek your immediate assistance in averting a situation that has the potential to negatively impact thousands of American businesses and jobs this summer,” the lawmakers said in the letter to Bush. “In anticipation of congressional action on legislation to address the H-2B visa shortage for [2004] … we are requesting your assistance to ensure that [Homeland Security] is prepared to begin issuing approved H-2B visas to fill critical labor needs by the start of the summer work season.”

U.S. Reps. Tom Allen and Michael Michaud also have been working for weeks on a compromise to resolve the problem.

The tourism and forestry industries are especially dependent on the H2-B visa program, and with their busy seasons quickly approaching, many businesses fear they will have to close hotel wings, shorten their hours or cut services to survive the summer without enough workers.

Some 230 Maine businesses hired 3,528 workers under the H-2B program last year, according to state labor officials.

This year, only 70 of the 217 companies that wanted foreign workers got their applications in by the new deadline. Nearly 3,200 jobs are at stake, most of them in the hotel and restaurant sector.

This year, without notice to the states or the private sector, the federal government decided to enforce the limit. The department cut off applications March 9, but didn’t get word out until March 10.

Because the New England tourism season starts so late into the spring, businesses here are the last to apply for the visas. Businesses cannot file applications any sooner than four months before they need them.

They must prove they could not find American workers to fill the positions.

A labor crisis in the Northeast was averted last year because the cap was not enforced; otherwise, like this year, businesses in other states take virtually all 66,000 visa slots before the Northeast can even apply, officials said.