By Alyse Pfeil
The Advocate
Last fall, Don Benoit had been making plans to hire 80 seasonal migrant laborers to work at his crawfish processing plant during the upcoming spring season, and he was applying for guest-worker visas just like he had for the last eight years.
But the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history would soon throw his plans — and his business — into disarray.
It’s now March, and Benoit, who owns D & T Crawfish in Abbeville, doesn’t have any migrant workers at his plant to peel and boil crawfish and prepare tail meat to sell at grocery stores. He just has his small, year-round of crew of about 30 local employees, which can’t process near the volume the business typically does.
“You lose a whole season” — and the ability to process about 2 million pounds of crawfish, Benoit said.
The government shutdown, which started Oct. 1 and ended Nov. 12, created delays in the H-2B temporary work visa program right as Louisiana crawfish processors were readying their applications.
And, at the end of January, when the federal government finally announced it was making thousands of extra visas available as in years past, it did so with new requirements.
Only paperwork listing worker start dates in January and beyond would be considered for visas — leaving out a whole group of businesses who had prepared applications seeking laborers to begin work in November and December.
“We were in a panic,” said Danielle Toups Young, Benoit’s attorney who owns a law practice in Eunice and specializes in temporary work visas.
Employers who had been looking for workers to start in November and December were essentially cut out of the visa pool, Young said.
“The crawfish industry had a massive scramble of, ‘What do we do?’” said Andy Brown, national affairs director for Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation.
“Ultimately, it didn’t matter,” he added. “If you had a start date in October, November or December, you didn’t get workers.”
The U.S. for years has granted far fewer H-2B visas than the number that businesses apply for, and employer interest in the program has been growing recently. But this time, the shutdown and policy changes added more turmoil, businesses and attorneys said.
“The numbers ran out much quicker than we’ve ever seen it,” said Loan Huynh, an employment‑based immigration attorney in Minneapolis and expert on temporary work visa matters. “There are more employers using the H-2B program.”
Huynh, Brown and Young all said that while Louisiana’s crawfish processors are just now having a hard time getting the workers they need through the visa program, that problem has been around for years — even though there is great demand for seasonal migrant labor among American businesses.
“The problem is bigger than us,” Young said. “We just are feeling it because it’s creeping into our local economy now.”
What happened?
The H-2B visa program allows businesses to bring migrant workers to the United States to fill temporary, nonagricultural jobs that American workers are not taking. Crawfish processing, which happens after harvest, is considered nonagricultural under the program.
Congress set a yearly cap of 66,000 visas under the program, which hasn’t been updated since the 1990s. But the Department of Homeland Security, which includes immigration enforcement, has discretion to issue “supplemental” visas every year. This year it released nearly 65,000 extra visas, the same amount released the three years prior.
Louisiana crawfish processors start H-2B visa applications in the fall so workers get approval from the federal government to start work in winter and early spring.
Crawfish plants typically need workers to start arriving in December, with the businesses continuing to bring in workers in January, February and March for a harvest season that lasts roughly from January through June.
According to Louisiana Farm Bureau estimates, the state has 20 to 25 crawfish processing businesses, all of which have some need for seasonal migrant workers.
At least 15 crawfish plants didn’t get any of the temporary work visas they applied for this year, Farm Bureau data shows.
Young said that, of 20 clients she has with crawfish plant operations, 11 did not get temporary work visas approved this year.
That’s a big difference from years past. Since she started her own practice in 2018, Young said she can recall just one crawfish-industry client that did not get an H-2B visa application it sought.
But the problem doesn’t just affect processing plants. It also affects farmers, who raise crawfish in giant ponds spanning tens of acres, where they are harvested before being sent to processors.
“My concern is now I won’t be able to sell my product,” said Ben Deshotels, a crawfish farmer. “These processors haven’t got their labor, so there’s a big portion of my crop that’s gonna stay in the field that’ll never get sold.”
Processors turn crawfish into tail meat that gets sold in grocery stores. “That portion of our crop is gonna go unharvested and have to stay in the fields,” Deshotels said.
Many farmers like Deshotels and Adlar Stelly raise both crawfish and rice, using their ponds to grow both.
“We’re growing rice at a loss to feed the crawfish we won’t be able to sell,” Stelly said.
What can be done?
In the immediate term, Huynh, the immigration attorney, said that Congress can “absolutely” address the problem by releasing additional H-2B visas.
“But that’s gonna take legislation, and that’s gonna take political will,” she said.
Because Congress has not yet finalized the budget for DHS, she said “there’s still hope” for federal lawmakers to do something this year.
She added: “There is no reason for us to do this to U.S. employers, to make it so difficult for them to hire labor that they so desperately need, and it really is politics standing in the way of allowing the U.S. economy to grow.”
Brown, of the Louisiana Farm Bureau, said the H-2B program has been broken for a long time.
“We need our federal delegation to exercise their leadership positions and to fix this for Louisiana and fix it for the country,” he said.
There’s a host of ways Congress could fix the problem, Brown said, one of the easiest being that it could remove the cap on the number of H-2B visas.
Young said a solution targeting the crawfish industry would be to grant crawfish processors an exemption from the cap on H-2B visas. For the visa program as a whole, lawmakers could look at increasing the total number of visas in the program, or they could allow employers returning to the program not to be subject to the cap, she said.
What does Congress say?
Once Benoit, the crawfish plant owner, learned in February that his application for worker visas was rejected, he organized a Feb. 18 meeting at Uncle T's Oyster Bar in Scott to bring the problem to the attention of Louisiana officials and see if there was any way to fix the problem.
In attendance were U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, representatives from U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy’s office, state Rep. Rhonda Butler, representatives from the Louisiana Farm Bureau and LSU, along with Young and crawfish processors, Benoit said.
Benoit is still without the seasonal migrant workers he applied for.
Higgins and Cassidy did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
A spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, R-Baton Rouge, said she “is continuing to evaluate ways we can assist” regarding Louisiana’s shortage of seasonal migrant workers. U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, also said he is “working to find a solution” to the problem and last week sent a letter to DHS urging immediate action.
“These businesses followed the standard application process, as they have every year, and were still left without the workers they depend on,” Fields said.
Democratic U.S. Rep Troy Carter, of New Orleans, had a similar view.
"When Louisiana crawfish processors are reporting zero seasonal workers approved through the H-2B visa program, it’s clear something is broken,” Carter said.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise did not return requests for comment.
Demand for workers
Business owners, immigration attorneys and advocates noted that employers only use the H-2B visa program after they’ve shown the Department of Labor that there aren’t enough American workers available to do a certain job.
Young said the H-2B program is expensive for businesses, many of whom use it as “a last chance, a last resort.”
“Crawfish processing is very seasonal,” Benoit said. “It’s a three-month job. It’s hard to get an American to come to work for just three months. And then it’s hard, you’re on your feet all day peeling crawfish. It’s just not a job that most Americans want.”
The federal government also has wage requirements for employers using the program. Benoit would have to pay migrant workers at his plant about $14 an hour this year.
“All of these jobs are advertised and available to any American citizen that wants to come and do them,” said Brown. “It’s not displacing American workers, and we’ve proven that for decades now.”