Pabian Law H-2B Visa Quarterly Update (June 2025)

We hope that this H-2B Quarterly Update finds you well.  We are excited to share the Pabian Law Quarterly Update for June 2025, serving as an educational update on government and regulation changes, trends, alerts, and other pertinent information.

Please read on for information about the following topics:

• Why the temporary halt of J-1 visa interviews is a big blow to the hospitality industry
• Summer 2026 H-2B visa planning (in a time of likely major staffing shortages!)
• Requests for Evidence (RFEs) for H-2B workers to attend biometrics appointments
• Recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions
• Winter 2025-26 season recruitment planning and potential H-2B cap issues
• What’s working (and what’s not) in hospitality recruiting today (a special section from our sister company, Seasonal Connect)

But first, an important note about the 2025 Pabian Law-Seasonal Connect Annual Staffing Summit.  The event is nearly sold out!  Fewer than 10 spots remain for our premier event which brings together seasonal hospitality employers from across the country for a day of education, networking, and collaboration.  Don’t miss your opportunity to:

• Learn valuable insights from industry experts
• Build long-lasting opposite-season recruiting partnerships with employers nationwide
• Discover real, actionable solutions to today’s staffing challenges

This event WILL sell out.  Register now – and view the agenda – at www.eventleaf.com/e/2025StaffingSummit.

Why the temporary halt of J-1 visa interviews is a big blow to the hospitality industry

Last week, the Trump administration ordered U.S. embassies and consulates abroad to temporarily halt the scheduling of new visa interviews appointments for students and exchange visitors, effective immediately. This includes the J-1 visa work and travel program as well as the J-1 intern program.

This is a huge blow to the hospitality industry since many organizations, especially in seasonal destinations, rely heavily on J-1 visa holders. The pause in J-1 interviews can lead to staffing shortages, potentially hindering the operation of seasonal businesses.

The State Department has noted that the halt of interviews is temporary until there are further guidelines in place in terms of social media vetting. However, the lack of guidance from the government regarding the duration of the pause is concerning for employers who heavily rely on the J-1 program and do not know when workers may ultimately be able to schedule an appointment. This is continuing to exacerbate the problem of consular delays that were already an issue before the pause. Once the pause is lifted, it could take several months for J-1 visa appointments to be scheduled due to consulate and embassy delays.

Much is still unknown, including whether the halt in J-1 visa appointments is part of a larger effort by the Trump Administration to dismantle the program in its entirety. However, it is a clear indication of the Trump administration’s negative views of the program. This initiative also shows how fast the administration can move in reshaping, limiting, and pausing the program.

This pause, along with other recent initiatives such as terminating TPS for Venezuelan workers, ending the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) parole program, and now the travel ban, will significantly impact how the hospitality industry staffs their properties.

As we continue to stress, this is a critical reminder to the hospitality industry to reevaluate staffing plans for upcoming seasons and to explore supplementing your staff with U.S. and H-2B visa workers. Are there alternative staffing models that you can take with American workers?  Are there different recruiting methods that you can undertake that might find you more American workers? If you cannot staff the roles with U.S. workers, we strongly encourage you to consider adding H-2B visa positions and/or increasing your H-2B visa numbers in positions that you are reliant upon J-1 visa workers.  Where the H-2B visa program takes about six (6) months from the start of the petition to your organization being approved for workers, it is important to consider your needs well in advance if you are unable to staff with J-1 visa workers.

Summer 2026 H-2B visa planning (in a time of likely major staffing shortages!)

Pabian Law recently kicked off planning and strategy meetings with our summer-season H-2B visa clients, even though their 2025 seasons are just kicking off.  It is integral to start planning now to set organizations up for staffing success.  Discussing timelines, recruiting strategies, dates of need, and the positions needed in these planning meetings are incredibly helpful in mapping a path forward for next year’s petitions.

H-2B visas are going to be even more important for hospitality organizations in the months and years ahead due to Trump administration impacts to other immigration programs.   We therefore encourage you to think about whether you need to add H-2B visa workers and/or new roles to your organization’s staffing plans.  We have seen how quickly the Trump Administration has moved in limiting and pausing the J-1 visa program, as well as ending other immigration programs like Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Humanitarian Parole.  Now is the time to be looking at how you would staff positions where you are heavily reliant upon J-1 workers and those in these humanitarian programs. Importantly, the H-2B visa program continues to be the safest international seasonal staffing option for employers.

Action item: We encourage clients to reach out to schedule your planning meeting/call ahead of when we start work on summer-season petitions in mid-September.  For potential clients, please reach out as soon as possible as we are likely going to need to close our practice to new summer 2026 clients in the months ahead due to incredible demand for our services.

Requests for Evidence (RFEs) for H-2B workers to attend biometrics appointments

U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) recently began issuing a new type of Request for Evidence (RFEs) on some employment-based visa applications, including H-2B, L-1, TN, O-1, and H-1B visa petitions, that left people scratching their heads and caused additional stress for foreign nationals in the U.S.  In these RFEs, USCIS requested that workers provide biometrics (collection of fingerprints, photograph, and other data) before the government would approve the petition. What made these RFEs so strange is that they were issued on a small amount of petitions and that foreign nationals have biometrics taken at consulates and embassies and when entering the U.S.  In short, the requests added an unnecessary step onto the petition process.

The RFEs appear to be the result of the government flagging certain workers for additional security checks.  The specific reason for the RFEs is not particularly clear.  It could just be a worker’s name getting flagged in a database for any possible reason.  Or it could be for a more specific reason like a past immigration violation or criminal arrest.  In a recent group forum discussion on the topic, some impacted workers mentioned they had previous arrests, but others mentioned that they never had an arrest, immigration violation, or even a traffic ticket.  Further, it is unclear what the government will do with the information collected at these appointments.

Importantly, responding to the RFEs is essential for the visa petition to be processed and ultimately approved.  So far, there have not received any reports of arrests or detentions resulting from these biometric appointments. However, due to the political climate, workers should attend these appointments cautiously and contact their employer if any concerns arise. Additionally, if the worker does not wish to attend the biometrics appointments or provide their address, employers do have the option to request that USCIS remove the worker from the petition and proceed processing the petition for the remaining workers.

This new RFE trend reflects heightened scrutiny and procedural changes at USCIS in how the agency processes employment-based petitions. While concerning, most of these RFEs are procedural and there are no indications of serious repercussions. However, every RFE that is issued must be taken seriously and answered promptly to avoid delays or denials in petition approvals.

Recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions

We are now seeing President Trump’s mass deportation agenda in action as undocumented individuals across the country continue to be arrested and detained. The focus of “Operation Patriot” – ICE’s largest ever enforcement operation – has been to target not only those in the U.S. unlawfully, but also those with significant criminality in the U.S. or abroad.

Large enforcement operations are occurring across the country. Immigration authorities arrested nearly 200 undocumented immigrants in early May during a four-day operation targeting businesses in Washington D.C. On June 4^th, ICE made a record-setting 2,368 arrests in a single day nationwide, with a goal of 3,000 arrests daily.  ICE has joined forces with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the Department of State (DOS) to find undocumented residents linked to transnational organized crime, gangs, or egregious offenses.

Why does this matter for the hospitality industry, especially when so many organizations have strict hiring policies to avoid hiring undocumented individuals?  It is because undocumented individuals make up such a large portion of the industry.  Estimates peg the number of undocumented individuals in the hospitality industry at about 1.1 million people, comprising an astounding 7% of the hospitality workforce.

Where we anticipate the crackdown on undocumented foreign nationals to impact our clients is in three primary areas:

1. Contract labor
   • This is an area where there has historically been a large undocumented population.  While employers are not responsible for checking immigration statuses’ of contract workers (unless they have knowledge of someone’s lack of legal status), employers that rely on this staffing model could be left with shortages in the ability of staffing firms to provide individuals for needed shifts and hours.
2. More competition for local staff
   • Employers will feel impacts of people leaving the workforce the more that the local workforce is reduced.  There will be more competition for less workers locally while wages are likely to rise to incentivize the talent that is left.  As so many of our clients have very limited local workforces interested in employment, a reduction in people able to work is going to have large impacts.
3. Foreign nationals’ fear of being in the U.S.
   • The news cycle seems to feature endless stories of foreign nationals being arrested, detained, separated from family members, and sometimes being sent far away to be held in jails in poor conditions.  There are now reports of ICE raids happening on a wide scale, with the National Guard and Marines sent to Los Angeles to continue with enforcement actions and removals.  These news stories and ICE actions are leaving many foreign nationals in the U.S. – even those here legally scared and some are choosing to leave the U.S. or not come at all.

As a reminder, Pabian Law published an article on how to prepare for an ICE raid, as well as a document on foreign nationals’ rights when entering the United States.  These documents are available on our website at www.pabianlaw.com/news.

Winter 2025-26 season recruitment planning and potential H-2B cap issues

While the winter season is still months away, now is the time to start H-2B visa recruiting for the upcoming season.  With H-2B visas in high demand, starting recruiting early is integral.  Additionally, based on data from our sister company, Seasonal Connect (www.seasonalconnect.com), workers are already very active in looking for winter-season employment.

An important consideration surrounding recruiting is whether you want to recruit workers from outside the country (out-of-country workers) or those who are already in the U.S. with H-2B visas (in-country workers).

As a refresher, out-of-country visas count against the H-2B numerical cap (they are cap-subject).  There are 33,000 visas allotted for the winter season.  Once these visas are used, no more workers can be brought in from outside the U.S. until (or unless) the government releases additional out-of-country visas through cap relief.  Individuals in the United States on H-2B visas, on the other hand, do not count against the numerical cap (they are cap-exempt).

Based on data from prior years, Pabian Law anticipates that the winter-season numerical cap will be reached for mid-October start dates.  We will have more information around mid-July on what this year’s demand looks like and how it compares to prior years.  For those that have seasonal winter start dates of mid-October and later, we strongly recommend planning to recruit only in-country workers, who are statutorily cap exempt, to ensure success with your H-2B visa petitions.

Action item: Pabian Law clients, please make sure to attend our upcoming Town Hall webinars, including our Making Sense of H-2B Visa Demand and the Lottery on Tuesday, July 15^th.

What’s working (and what’s not) in hospitality recruiting today

A special section from our sister company, Season Connect.

Recruiting in the hospitality industry is evolving fast.  With shifting worker expectations, increased competition, and challenging visa processes, employers are rethinking how they approach seasonal staffing.  While the hiring landscape may feel challenging, success is not only possible – it is happening.

The belief that no workers are available is a myth.  There are seasonal workers who are actively looking for jobs in hospitality, but they have more options than ever before and are choosing to work for employers who are putting in the effort.

One of the biggest trends we are seeing is a shift toward early, intentional recruiting.  Employers who start the hiring process early (sometimes six months ahead of their season or more) are consistently ahead of the curve.

We are also seeing increased use of recruiting platforms, including our sister company, Seasonal Connect, to reach candidates more effectively.

In addition, there is a growing emphasis on employer branding, including highlighting who you are, what your property is all about, and why workers should choose to work for you.  Employers are able to show their workplace culture, employee appreciation efforts, and unique benefits to demonstrate what it is like to work at their property.

Seasonal hospitality workers are looking for more than just a job.  They want a positive experience, recognition, supportive managers, and assistance with things outside the job – like mental health services, activities they can do in their spare time, and housing that suits their needs.

The employers getting it right are doing a few key things:

• Starting early: They are actively recruiting well in advance of their season, and are in the mindset that recruiting never truly stops.
• Building relationships: They are connecting with their opposite-season recruiting partners year after year, and working with those partners to create a cohesive experience for their seasonal staff.
• Providing transparency: Clear job descriptions, housing details, and insight into what it is like to work at an organization build trust.
• Staying active: Successful employers do not “set it and forget it.”  They are updating their Seasonal Connect profiles regularly, responding to candidates quickly, and remaining visible year-round.

Common mistakes are holding other employers back:

• Recruiting too late: The best workers are committing to their seasonal positions early on.
• Neglecting online presence: Outdated profiles, lack of platform utilization, and missing job posts mean lost opportunities.
• Assuming workers will just come: The days of posting jobs and hoping are over.
• Focusing only on wages: While pay matters, culture and communication matter more.  Workers want employers who support their well-being, both on and off the clock.
• Not responding to candidates who do not meet requirements: Seasonal workers are very connected to one another and they talk about their experiences with employers.  While responding to every application is time-consuming, it positively impacts your reputation with potential team members.

Hospitality recruiting is not impossible, but it does require year-round effort.  Proactive employers are filling their roles and building stronger teams that return season after season.

The workers are out there, but you have to go out and get them.

Ready to take a proactive approach to hiring and build the right team for your organization?  Join our sister company, Seasonal Connect, today at www.seasonalconnect.com.

Conclusion

We hope that you enjoyed this Quarterly Update.  Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions about the topics listed above or any other immigration-related topics.

Warm regards,

Keith Pabian and your friends at Pabian Law