Pabian Law Clients,
I hope all is well. We wanted to provide an update regarding the possibility of a partial government shutdown at the end of this month. After researching the matter, we can say that another shutdown appears highly unlikely at the moment.
Congress has until January 30th to approve a spending bill. On Tuesday, January 20th, Congress reached a bipartisan agreement on a bill to fund every federal agency for the 2026 Fiscal Year. There is one remaining sticking point, which is funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Political tensions are high considering the recent events in Minnesota, with some Democratic members pledging to vote “no” on any bill that includes ICE funding. However, other top Democrats have indicated that they will support the bipartisan bill despite ICE funding, since a shutdown would not necessarily have much impact on ICE’s funding or operations in the near term. More detail is provided in a recent NBC news article.
In the unlikely event of a shutdown, this could impact H-2B applications, as all processing of H-2B applications at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) would pause. This would include a delay in being able to file H-2B applications for May 1st start dates on Monday, February 2nd. However, Congress’s recent actions strongly indicate that a second government shutdown will be avoided.
Note regarding H-2B cap relief: Some of you may have seen an announcement that the proposed spending bill includes authorization for the government to release up to 64,716 supplemental H-2B visas (i.e., cap relief). Please note that this is the same provision that has been included in the annual spending bill every year in recent history. It does not actually issue cap relief – it just authorizes the government to do so. As outlined in a recent Client Alert, the government announced that they plan to release only 35,000 supplemental visas this year. There have been no additional updates regarding the details or timing of cap relief outside of the initial announcement.
We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will provide updates as they become available.
Thank you,
Keith