South Dakota could face a shortage of temporary help during the tourism season.
Last week, the department of homeland security announced that H-2B visas had run out.
Each fiscal year, 33,000 visas are granted for temporary immigrant workers who perform seasonal work.
US Senator Mike Rounds says running out of the visas impacts South Dakota because of the state’s low unemployment rate…
"So, we’re disproportionately impacted when we can’t bring in these seasonal employees to help because we simply don’t have the individuals to put to work… we’re at a low unemployment rate right now," Rounds says. "Now, we’ve been in contact with the administration for them to do everything in their power to rectify the situation, but it appears right now that it will require a legislative fix in congress.”
Rounds says that fix may either be increasing the cap on H-2B visas, or renewing an exemption that allows returning H-2B workers to not count towards the cap.