The Seasonal Employment Alliance (SEA) was established in 2017. SEA’s primary focus is the application of persistent grassroots advocacy directed at Congress and the Administration. SEA has spearheaded the efforts to communicate critical labor needs of its members to Congress including driving and facilitating Hill meetings with SEA members and their representatives, summarizing and disseminating the intelligence gathered from those meetings back to our members, and importantly – driving the appropriate follow up with every member of Congress. SEA also created and maintains a comprehensive database to track these efforts. This information allows us to hold Members of Congress more accountable and to more precisely target our lobbying activities.
Our revamped organization, and the H-2B industry, now benefits from a dedicated, first-class support team whose sole focus is persistent, grassroots oriented H-2B advocacy. Increasing H-2B program user participation in our advocacy efforts is a priority for our organization and is essential to achieving both short-term and long-term program reforms including cap relief.
We have made tremendous progress since SEA was founded in late 2017 including:
•Doubled the number of supporters of the H-2B program in the House and Senate
•Number of signatories on pro-H-2B House letters have increased from 40-50 to over 100
•Number of signatories on pro-H-2B Senate letters have increased from 15 or 20 signatories to 35-40
•Obtained cap relief language in the last seven House Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) appropriations bills
•Secured a record 64,716 additional H-2B visas for FY23, largely as a result of our supporting role of the administration’s Northern Triangle policy
•Negotiated Seasonal Employer Protection Act with Labor in December of 2022. This was the first deal reached between Labor and H-2B stakeholders since the inception of the H-2B program. The language would have provided most of our members with permanent workforce certainty.
We will continue to advocate to improve the dependability, efficiency and long-term viability of the H-2B Program.