Shrimpers hoping for relief from worker shortage

BROWNSVILLE — Rio Grande Valley shrimpers, faced with a crippling shortage of foreign workers due to Congress’ failure to renew the H-2B Returning Worker Program, may have a glimmer of hope in the federal spending bill signed into law May 5.

BROWNSVILLE — Rio Grande Valley shrimpers, faced with a crippling shortage of foreign workers due to Congress’ failure to renew the H-2B Returning Worker Program, may have a glimmer of hope in the federal spending bill signed into law May 5.

The bill contains language authorizing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to raise the cap on the number of foreign workers with H-2B visas U.S. companies can hire in fiscal year 2017 from 66,000 (33,000 for each half of the fiscal year) to nearly 130,000. The question is whether Homeland Security will follow through and raise the cap, and how soon.

Andrea Hance, executive director of the Texas Shrimp Association, said owners of shrimp fleets and processing plants on the Texas coast are in desperate straits for want of workers, with the Texas shrimp season set to reopen in mid-July, she said.

Shrimpers and processors had been relying on the Returning Worker Program, which exempted from the cap H-2B workers who had come to the United States at least one of the previous three fiscal years. However, in the face of conservative opposition Congress did not renew the program after it expired Sept. 30. Further, the H-2B cap for the second half of fiscal year 2017 (33,000), was reached March 16.

Hance said the ultimate goal is to get Congress to renew the Returning Worker Program, though raising the cap — if it happens — is better than nothing.

“Everybody right now is still in limbo as to how long that process is going to take,” she said. “The most optimistic way to look at this is we may get workers around the end of June, maybe July. That’s pushing it, because the season opens July 15.”

The pessimistic view is that the workers won’t come in time, Hance said. In that case, boats will go out with skeleton crews, she said. If it’s a big harvest and a small crew, the shrimp won’t be headed (their heads removed) at sea, which lowers the price per pound, Hance said.

“The conditions are favorable for us to have a great harvest this year,” she said. “It’s really going to be devastating if these guys, especially in Brownsville, if they don’t get their workers. I don’t know what they’re going to do.”

Every H-2B worker on a Brownsville-Port Isabel shrimp boat is from Mexico. Before a company can hire H-2B workers, it has to advertise the jobs locally — though finding U.S. workers willing to work on a shrimp boat is virtually impossible, Hance said.

She also cited the case of a processing facility in Port Arthur that typically uses 50 H-2B employees each year. The owner was able to fill only four positions with U.S. workers this year, though none of them showed up to work, Hance said.

“I think the average American has no idea that this is happening,” Hance said. “Most Americans have no idea we can’t find workers. They think it’s crazy.”

She said she’s heard from elected officials in back room conversations that no one in Congress wants to go out on a limb for the Returning Worker Program because immigration is such a controversial topic right now.

Nonetheless, H-2B workers are desirable not just because they show up and aren’t afraid of hard work. Unlike their U.S. counterparts, in the rare instances when they can be found, the Mexicans tend to have experience, Hance said.

“It’s a big problem a lot of people don’t understand,” she said. “They really need to be somewhat skilled. We need the returning workers because they know how to fish. We need them now.”