April Fool’s Hoax or Answers and Action? The second half of the US Government’s Fiscal Year and thus the H-2B Statutory Cap will begin on April 1, 2025. April 1 has been known as “April Fool’s Day” or “All Fools Day” for generations known as a day of pranks and hoaxes. The Biden Administration published the Supplemental Visa Regulations in December of 2024, with specific details on the number of available Returning Worker and TED (Targeted For Economic Development) H2B Visas and specific events that would trigger the release of those visas for the second half of the fiscal year. It was apparent to those of us who closely monitor the H2B program processing that the second half of the fiscal year statutory cap hit on March 5, 2025. The trigger allowing employers to file for Supplemental H2B visas 15-days after the second half of the fiscal year statutory cap hit, according to the Supplemental Visa Rule Published in December, was the official announcement from the Department of Homeland Security that the Cap had been met. As per my last general communication titled “Arbitrary and Capricious” many of us were extremely concerned that the announcement delay indicated a debate within the administration concerning making adjustment to the Supplemental Visa Framework. This would have been a massive April Fools Hoax on all of us and could have happened. Thanks to great work by organizations such as the Seasonal Employment Alliance, the Outdoor Amusement Business Association (OABA), H2B Coalition and their grassroots membership (you guys) – DHS finally announced, “On March 26, 2025, USCIS announced that we received enough petitions to reach the congressionally established H-2B cap for the second half of FY 2025.” This triggered the ability of employers to file for the second half of the fiscal year 19,000 available visas. What does this mean to YOU and YOUR BUSINESS? If your business has already been approved by DHS with a petition with a start date prior to April 1, 2025, then that petition should still be valid and available for consular processing for the class of workers approved in the specific petition (unless the petition has expired). These announcements should not affect your business. If you business has already been approved by DHS (or has been accepted for processing and petition approval pending) for employment starting on April 1, 2025 your business “beat the statutory cap” and should still be able to process unrestricted (new or returning, from any country eligible to participate in the H2B program) workers for your business. If you have a “porting” petition in process, where in-status H-2B workers were being transferred to your company using your valid Temporary Labor Certificate (TLC) there should be no change in the status and timelines of those petitions. If your business is a JKJ Workforce Client, and you received a TLC between March 5, 2025, and March 28, 2025 and: Your need for workers was for TED workers, the petition for those workers should have been filed (assuming we had the proper signed documents from your business) within 24 hours of the TLC being released to your business and to our company. Your need for workers was for Returning Workers, the petition for those workers could not be filed until the filing window opened on March 25, 2025 . You may or may not know that I was honored with the Pioneer Award by the Outdoor Amusement Business Association in early February 2025. This appears to be a "Lifetime Achievement" award. I am not sure if my doctor sent the OABA my latest blood pressure readings and decided they needed to act fast, or what triggered the award this year? Although I do plan on living to 100 and working on my 100th birthday, that is not a business plan. Since my medical emergency scare a few years ago, I have been actively building a team of associates to make sure that the business is able to service current and future clients for generations to come. I have stepped back from daily operations, working on supervision (chaos coordination), and business planning. I was outside of the USA on my first real vacation in years from March 27 to April 26, with little or no communication with the office, allowing the team to handle the business while I was away. My assumption is that none of the clients even knew I was away -- and if that was the case then my organizational efforts worked. My first night back in the USA, our area was hit with historic thunderstorms and rain, with over 20 inches of rain recorded in one night in Harlingen, TX. Here is a Yahoo story and photo of our neighborhood in Palm Valley, TX. My house is not in the photo – we are about an inch below the far left bottom corner in the first photo. RGV FLOOD We were not able to travel around the area until Sunday Afternoon. The Harlingen Airport is the FedEx hub for the Rio Grande Valley, and has been closed since Thursday. It may re-open on Monday after the runways are tested to see if they can support the landing and takeoff of aircraft. AIRPORT Coming back to the storyline above: If your business is a JKJ Workforce Client, and you received a TLC between March 5, 2025, and March 28, 2025 and your need for workers was for Returning Workers, the petition for those workers could not be filed until the filing window opened on March 25, 2025. As of Sunday March 30, 2025 all of the pending petitions have been completed and delivered to the FedEx Office Location in McAllen, TX. I was told that they did not know for sure when the packages would be delivered, but they expected that the packages would be trucked by FedEx to Corpus Christi, TX (with the other stuff in their Warehouse that could not depart on Friday and Saturday) on Monday, and then should be delivered on Tuesday to USCIS in Dallas. When the USCIS opens to receive petitions that are part of a cap-release, they typically accept the packages for a period of 3 to 5 days. If it appears that the cap (in this case 19,000 Returning Worker Visas) will be hit during that initial filing period, they conduct a lottery, accept up to the limit and reject the rest. My gut feeling is that the cap will NOT be met in the first 3 to 5 days, but I may be wrong. The filing window should be from Thursday, March 26 through Tuesday, April 1. We have done everything humanly possible to make sure that all JKJ Workforce Agency clients who were eligible to be submitted for Returning Worker Visas have had their petitions prepared and delivered to FedEx for filing. Great Teamwork!! We will not know if any, some or all of the petitions submitted are accepted for processing by USCIS until they make an official announcement (probably April 2) and we start receiving email notices with receipt notices (probably after COB on April 1). We cannot schedule appointments for returning workers until after the petitions are accepted and APPROVED by USCIS. With the large number of employers in all industries having a need for Returning Workers and limited appointments at the US Consulates Abroad, I anticipate a limited number of returning workers being able to travel by April 15, 2025, but most will travel days or weeks after that date.  Any employers that are certified by DOL on March 29, 2025, or after will be filed for TED, RW and/or PORTING workers or a combination as per the filing strategy that has been developed for your company, based upon the available visa categories as announced by USCIS. If a filing strategy has not been agreed upon, or you can't remember, please email James.K.Judkins@JKJWorkforce.com Consular Processing Updates As of March 28, JKJ Workforce Agency and our associates around the globe have arranged for consular processing and travel of over 4,000 H-2B and H-2A for our clients. The timeline for workers from Mexico is between one and three weeks, depending upon the size of the group – if the workers are new or returning – if the workers need individual consular interviews or not – and the number of appointments available at each consulate. As there will be a huge surge of requests for workers as the April 1 supplemental visa petitions are approved, the timelines will change. If you have lists of H2B returning workers you want back please make sure they have been emailed to James.K.Judkins@JKJWorkforce.com The timeline for workers from Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Jamaica, Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, Brazil has been between 2 and 4 weeks, but there have been some cases where there have been longer delays for some groups. If you need workers from South Africa, please consult with your agent in South Africa as we have no information on South Africa. The timeline for workers from El Salvador has been problematic, with some employers needing to submit reams of documentation prior to workers being processed, so we are currently actively discouraging employers from requesting returning workers from El Salvador. If you have specific questions about workers you have requested, please email James.K.Judkins@JKJWorkforce.com for updates. Remember we may not have updates on a daily basis – and if we do know anything we will contact you proactively and immediately. Some of the US Consulates mail passports with issued visas directly to the workers. The individual worker may open up the envelope and then immediately contact the employer (without telling us that the envelope has arrived). If you receive information from your worker that they have received their visa and we have not already told you, it is NOT that we are not doing our job. It is that the worker failed to contact us via WhatsApp at 510-815-6936 prior to contacting you. If this is the case, please email the information you receive to James.K.Judkins@JKJWorkforce.com and instruct your worker(s) to communicate immediately with JKJ via WhatsApp 510-815-6936 Humpday Zoom Call To educate and communicate with clients, in addition to the direct contact that you receive via email, phone calls and texts from the JKJ Team, I schedule a monthly zoom call open to all. The zoom is on the first Wednesday of the month, every month. 12 Noon Central Time. The next one will be on Wednesday, April 2nd. To log on, save this email in your inbox, and click on the HUMPDAY ZOOM button below at 1 PM Eastern, 12 Noon Central, 11 AM Mountain Time, 10 AM Pacific Time. HUMPDAY-ZOOM Please use the email address james.k.judkins@jkjworkforce.com as your primary form of communication with JKJ Workforce Agency. It is monitored by several different JKJ Associates with requests being forwarded to the proper team for action and response. James Judkins, Chaos Coordinator James.K.Judkins@JKJWorkforce.com