It’s thick in the H-2A visa application season, and while the overall volume of applications is slightly up for the 2026 season, there are reports of visa processing delays.
Chris Ball, CEO of seasonal workforce services provider másLabor, says the delays are mostly at the consulate level, where appointments have been hard to come by. Ball says this is right as most growers seek workers for an early April start time.
This is generally a busy time for H-2A visa processing as growers can only apply 75 days before the first start date, he says, and appointments at these consulates get filled quickly. Ball says that while H-2A applications overall are up this year, it doesn’t necessarily feel any more hectic than it has in years past.
“The industry is saying, in total, it’s up 3% or 4% on a year over year basis,” he says. “Our business is up probably 6% or 7% on the year.”
Local Bottlenecks and H-2B Policy Shifts
Ball says Easter falling right around the busiest time of the year has had an impact on appointment availability, especially in the U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey, which processes a lot of the H-2A visa applications in Mexico. For Easter in Mexico, businesses and offices close in observance of Holy Week, as do Mexican government offices — which will likely slow down processing.
“You’re losing essentially four or five days of appointments right at peak season, and this happened last year too,” Ball says.
He points out that the Department of Labor has been responsive to reports of visa processing slowdowns and has reported it would open availability during the weekdays near Easter.
“The administration has promised an additional 2,000 appointments around Holy Week,” he says. “They’re going to have those people work more than the traditional shutdown to try to make up for that delay.”
Ball says these delays have been amplified due to a change in policy with returning workers in the temporary non-agricultural H-2B program also needing consulate appointments for visa processing. In years before, returning H-2B workers had a waiver and didn’t need an appointment to process the visa. This year they do, and that compounds an already busy time.
“That’s sucking up the appointments as well, the pressure from the change with H-2B,” he says. “There’s only so many hours in the day to do them, and there’s more people [needing visas].”
John Hollay, president and CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, says there have also been reports of delays specifically for H-2A applications in South Africa, where consulate appointments needed for the next few weeks were being scheduled into July.
“I worked with the State Department to get a rush of appointments there to meet the need that is coming through,” he says. “We’ve been pleased with the response of the State Department there.”
Navigating Peaks and Valleys
Hollay says that there’s not just one issue contributing to these delays but rather that it’s a multitude of issues.
“Because everybody has to go through the same steps in the same system — some have to go through more — but everybody gets caught right at that last couple of steps as they’re trying to get approved,” he says. “So, even workers that have no challenges, no issues, in the end might be on a job order with someone who does, and they get delayed.”
He says increased interest due to the interim final rule on the Adverse Effect Wage Rate, technical changes to the H-2A system and upgrades and the government shutdown at the end of 2025 has really pushed the system to a breaking point.
“It’s this series of events that has created a major problem for the program at the time when we’re hoping to see some benefit from this new IFR, and you really have a system that is really strained to the point of breaking,” he says.
Ball says all of this creates peaks and valleys for consulate staff, especially as most farms want workers around the same time.
“We think there’s going to be a delay on a bunch of workers for their requested date,” he says. “They’re going to get the workers, but are they going to get them a week or two or three late? Maybe. I think it’s just going to depend on are your workers ready. If they pop open the appointments and we grab some of them, we can run groups of workers through.”
Ball says the team at másLabor worked with its grower-clients as much as possible to get ahead of the rush, but as he says, there’s only so much his team can do with the H-2A application window being 75 days out and it being during the H-2A application rush. He says his team has even sent applications for West Coast growers through Tijuana, Mexico, or other applications through Guadalajara, Mexico, to try and beat the bottleneck.
“Those consulate offices aren’t really staffed to suck up the Monterey volume,” he says. “They’re set up to run what they normally run.”
Ball says issues with a cartel in Guadalajara may have also dissuaded visa applicants from using that consulate.
CDL Proficiency Gap
Hollay says that while a lot of the increased pressure has to do with an uptick in applications, visa applications in general are facing additional scrutiny.
“We are also seeing enhanced screening that is applied to all visa holders and then specific advanced screening that is now being applied to positions that require a CDL license,” Hollay says. “And some of that additional enhanced screening is bleeding over into other driving positions.”
Hollay says that the Department of Labor has specific public guidance on the enhanced screening for CDL positions, but there have been some issues still at the consulate level.
“The challenge that we have seen is that there is some, we think, confusion over how that enhanced screening and who that enhanced screening is supposed to be applied to, and so that is definitely contributing to the delays,” he says.
Ball says he’s heard reports that consulate staff handles the basic English proficiency test differently, which is a test that all H-2A applicants seeking CDL employment must pass.
“We have one client that wants us to recruit like 180 drivers, and we’ve only been able to recruit half that many predominantly because of the English proficiency,” he says. “We’ve seen a really uneven application of this, of the consulate’s process. It’s new, and people aren’t really trained on what they’re supposed to do, and [for] some of them it’s really easy to get guys through, and others have said, ‘No, you can’t pass it.’ They’re freezing workers.”
Digitization Growing Pains
Ball says these delays may be due to reduced staffing at the consulate level, though that’s purely speculative. He encourages growers to take to heart how receptive the Department of Labor has been to reports of these delays. He says industry organizations and congressional representatives have continued to push for continued improvements.
“I would continue to push on the industry to talk to your congressman, talk to your senator,” he says. “Make noise that that, ‘This is impacting my business negatively because the State Department is behind in processing.’ Because if some congressman or senator is calling the secretary of ag or they’re calling the State Department and trying to get all the way to Secretary [Marco] Rubio or whoever they can get to and say, ‘This has got to get fixed,’ ... that does help.”
And Hollay encourages growers not to be disheartened by reports of slowdowns and delays in visa processing. He says the improvements that have been made to the H-2A program in the last 12 months have been significant.
“It is getting to a better place and a better working manner,” he says. “The agency is working to digitize the program, which the industry has long sought, but we knew there would be some bugs in that process, so we’re generally glad that they are working to do that.”
Hollay says it’s also worth noting how the Department of Labor has taken a holistic approach to the program, adding that the administration wants to see this program work for growers.
“Farmers are turning to it because they have no other options, and so they need to know what they’re going in for, and they need to understand how the industry is working with the administration to improve that experience,” he says. “I think people want to see it succeed, and so we’re hopeful that we’re getting there. But if you’re a user, you want to make sure that you’re entering a program that you know can work, and so the fact that people are paying attention to it and not just letting it sit idle, I think, is critical.”
And the administration also sees the critical role that the H-2A program plays in domestic production.
“What I think is critical for us to look at is that I think this administration, maybe for the first time, is recognizing the important role that the H-2A program plays in our food security,” he says. “And if we’re going to grow food in here, in America, just look at the trend of H-2A usage; it’s going to be mostly on the back of these workers who are growing our fruits and vegetables.”
