Texas shrimp industry to lose $1M per day due to immigrant visa cap

The Trump administration’s cap on U.S. visas for seasonal foreign workers will cost Texas’s shrimp industry millions of dollars, according to a trade group.

Andrea Hance, executive director of the Texas Shrimp Association, told The Brownsville Herald that the Brownsville-Port Isabel shrimp fleet has started this season without enough workers. 

Hance estimates that 70 percent of the fleet is heading out to the Gulf short-staffed this season.

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According to Hance, the state’s shrimp industry heavily depends on hiring workers by using H-2B visas, which businesses can typically obtain if they can establish that there are not enough American workers able or willing to fill temporary positions. 

She blamed the shortage of workers in the shrimp industry on Congress’s failure to renew a cap exemption on returning workers this year.

Hance said the shrimp industry is short 750 workers and is being crippled by the federal cap. She added it will cost the state industry $1 million per day, according to The Associated Press.