June 4, 2021 — U.S. sanctions filed last week against a Chinese distant-water fishing firm for alleged forced labor abuses amount to “American slander,” according to a Chinese state media outlet.
The China Youth Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party Youth League, has sought to link the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s sanctioning of the Dalian Ocean Fishing Co. to other Western claims of human rights abuses as part of a coordinated effort to “tarnish” China.
April 21, 2021 — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday, 20 April announced that it would make another 22,000 H-2B visas available for businesses, such as seafood processors, that rely on seasonal laborers.
In a statement, the federal agency said feedback from businesses that rely on the visa program to staff summer operations led to the expansion. DHS said many of those businesses were unable to hire American workers to fill critical positions.
April 1, 2021 — A leaked document originating from the Office of Intelligence and Analysis – part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – has recommended the creation of a multilateral coalition with South American nations led by the U.S. to challenge China’s illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and trade practices.
The document was obtained by news service Axios and revealed in an article published 23 March.
January 4, 2021 — U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a withhold release order against a Taiwanese tuna trawler, saying it has received credible information that the vessel was involved in the use of forced labor.
The agency, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, on 31 December ordered its personnel at all U.S. ports of entry to detain tuna and other seafood harvested by the Lien Yi Hsing No. 12, a Taiwanese-flagged and -owned distant-water fishing vessel. The agency said its investigation concluded the Lie Yi Hsing 12’s operators had used deceptive hiring practices, withholding of wages, and debt bondage in staffing the vessel. In a press release, the CBP said it will provide the owner of the vessels the opportunity to demonstrate its merchandise was not produced with forced labor, or to export any of their shipments that have been detained to a third country.
July 24, 2020 — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was joined by three industry groups and a technology company in a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and State Department regarding the actions of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to curb foreign workers from entering the country, primarily via the H-1B visa program.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, 21 July, in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, California, comes a month after Trump announced he was temporarily suspending several work visa programs as high unemployment rates due to the coronavirus pandemic left millions of Americans out of work.
May 13, 2020 — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has announced that it will not increase the cap on H-2B visas for the 2020 fiscal year, but the agency is implementing a new rule it said will give food processors more flexibility to help them during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The rule, scheduled to be published Thursday, 14 May, will allow companies to hire current visa holders already in the country for work, according to a statement posted on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services site.
April 17, 2020 — The National Fisheries Institute, along with 31 other associations representing industries from beef to trucking, has signed onto a letter to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell requesting Congress grant liability protection from lawsuits related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The industries that have signed onto the letter all represent “essential critical infrastructure,” according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The U.S. government has told these companies that they have a “special responsibility to maintain your normal work schedule.”
March 24, 2020 — According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, there are no changes at this time to the current plan to add 35,000 visas to the country’s H-2B temporary worker program.
That announcement initially came prior to the coronavirus pandemic that’s shut down several sectors of the U.S. economy. Over the weekend, the U.S. enacted bilateral agreements with Canada and Mexico to shut down the borders for non-essential travel, which includes tourism and recreational travel, in an attempt to control the spread of COVID-19. After that move, it was initially in doubt as to whether the H-2B program expansion would continue as planned.
March 5, 2020 — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced on Thursday, 5 March, it will release 35,000 additional H-2B visas over two phases for the second half of the 2020 fiscal year.
The number is down slightly from the 45,000 H-2B visas The Wall Street Journal reported last week would be issued to address widespread labor shortages in the United States.