Donald Trump

Trump Admin Moves to Bar Haitians From Agricultural, Seasonal Worker Visas

DHS is designating 82 countries as eligible for the H-2A and 81 eligible for the H-2Bs in 2018

The Trump administration is moving to prohibit people from Haiti — which the president allegedly insulted in a meeting last week — from applying for visas for seasonal and farm workers.

The Department of Homeland Security has given notice it plans to prohibit people from Haiti, as well as Belize and Samoa, ineligible to apply for H-2A and H-2B visas, which are temporary. The H-2A visa is for agriculture and the H-2B is for non-agricultural seasonal work in places such as resorts.

In the notice, DHS said that Haitians applying for the visas “present extremely high rates of refusal." DHS also said it stopped taking Belize applications because the country is not complying with U.S. anti-trafficking laws. And Samoa is now listed as “at risk of non-compliance” because it has not made progress in accepting back nationals deported from the U.S. 

Michael Clemens, a senior fellow at the non-partisan Center for Global Development, said barring Haitians from the visa will encourage illegal migration to the U.S. and hurt the U.S. economy. "Haitian farmworkers on the H-2A visa that I have studied in Alabama added $4,000 to the U.S. economy per worker, per month," said Clemens, who is a labor economist.

Contact Us