Getting Serious about the Northern Triangle
The H-2B program has always been something of a political football
The reasons for this should be obvious: as a misunderstood foreign guestworker program, H-2B tends to get swept up in the larger immigration debate, leading to strange bedfellows between the nativists (“they’re taking our jobs!”) and organized labor (also, “they’re taking our jobs!”). The electorate is also largely ignorant of the program’s existence, let alone its importance to the American economy. They say comprehensive immigration reform will never happen in an election year, and these days it certainly seems like every year is an election year.
And so, it is always interesting to see the concoctions and schemes that bureaucrats and politicians alike sneak into the program when the industry lobbies for additional visas (“cap relief”). Likely the most significant of such, at least in recent history, has been the Northern Triangle initiative – a well-intentioned, systematic plan to increase H-2B worker volume from the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
How did we get here?
The initiative’s roots can largely be traced back to the Trump Administration’s fury over the migrant caravans coming from those countries at the same time the former president was pounding his literal and proverbial fists over illegal immigration. Those initial rage tweets turned into concrete policy action, first in the form of a bilateral cooperation agreement between the U.S. Department of Labor and the Guatemalan Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, and later the administration’s use of the H-2B program as a geopolitical bargaining chip to advance the president’s domestic agenda.
With the help of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Trump Administration created new incentives for the Northern Triangle governments to clamp down on illegal immigration, specifically by pushing for increased nonimmigrant job opportunities from those countries. To some extent, the idea is a public policy win-win: H-2B employers have access to more visas and Central American workers have access to lucrative U.S. job opportunities conditioned on them returning home each year. It’s no surprise, then, that this policy was enthusiastically continued and expanded by the incoming Biden Administration (which added Haiti to the mix).
Growing pains have limited program adoption
But like anything else in the H-2B program, the devil is in the details. While there have been some success stories, and certainly improvement since its inception, the initiative continues to be plagued with problems that make it unpalatable to many H-2B employers. The reality is that the Northern Triangle operations continue to fall short of the State Department’s comparatively well-oiled machine in Mexico.
The biggest challenge relates to delayed worker arrivals. There continue to be significant issues with consular capacity, efficiency, and competence, as well as disproportionately high rates of Section 221(g) administrative processing cases, amplifying the initial delays. Poor communication has also contributed to the dysfunction, with the relevant agencies often slow to act and even slower to respond.
There has also been a high rate of abscondment and worker discontent. Part of the issue here may be the ministries’ failure to properly screen and vet the workers they’re pushing through the system. Another issue may be their failure to apprise workers of the terms and conditions of employment, resulting in workers with outsized and inaccurate expectations about their earning potential or the nature of the work. Regardless of the underlying cause (or causes), these issues are very real and serve as the biggest impediment to widespread adoption of a Northern Triangle strategy.
There is a path to success in the Northern Triangle
This criticism is not intended to disparage the efforts or the concept itself; to the contrary, it’s out of a legitimate desire to improve. As an H-2B agent, we have every incentive to increase visa availability and keep our clients happy with workers’ on-time arrival. And to date, our relationships with the ministries have been entirely diplomatic and cordial. We have, on numerous occasions, met with high-level delegations from each of the ministries and found them to be entirely receptive to feedback and willing to engage with industry stakeholders. Intent is not at issue, but rather, the execution of the intent.
If all parties are serious about making the Northern Triangle work, there needs to be continued improvement across all functions of the initiative – both on the ministry side as well as the U.S. government. Otherwise, H-2B employers will justifiably approach the Northern Triangle initiative with skepticism, distrust, or in some cases outright hostility.
On the wish list:
Streamlined, consistent appointment processes – The current consular appointment processes in the Northern Triangle are slow, inefficient, and have countless redundancies. To make matters worse, they are often subject to arbitrary, ill-timed process changes mid-season and without notice. Further, compared to Mexico's 3-day process, consular operations there often take a week or more to return workers' passports. Streamlining this process would benefit both employers and the State Department itself.
Increased consular capacity – The reality is that the State Department’s consular operations in the Northern Triangle countries are not accustomed to this kind of worker volume, resulting in a tremendous scarcity of timely appointments. Given the relative lateness of cap relief visas in the first place, lack of appointment availability continues to eat into H-2B employers’ period of need. Each passing day makes the whole effort less economically viable.
Public-private partnerships – Much of the federal grant money coming through USAID is intended to make the government a one-stop-shop for all things worker coordination in the Northern Triangle. But that is not the model that made Mexico a success; indeed, private recruiters and worker facilitators have served a very useful purpose in ensuring a smooth transaction south of the border while maintaining appropriate standards of quality. It’s like the old Ghostbusters quip: “I’ve worked in the private sector… they expect results!” Instead, the government has doubled down, moving to require private facilitators to register with the Ministry of Labor, among other restrictions and limitations. This is a step backwards, not forwards.
Improved recruitment procedures – While the industry remains appreciative of the labor ministries’ good-faith efforts, much can be improved with respect to recruiting qualified, able, willing, and available foreign workers from those countries. And more importantly, making sure such workers are fully apprised of the terms and conditions of employment and have realistic expectations about work in the United States. This ought to include a candid discussion about the long-term implications of job abandonment with respect to workers’ future U.S. work opportunities.
Government action — and urgency — could better support American businesses
If we’re really feeling ambitious, we could add one bonus bullet to this list – institutional urgency. Both the U.S. and Northern Triangle governments should understand that employers relying on H-2B workers are in a desperate situation. Their businesses – their livelihoods, and the livelihoods of their employees – are on the line. Days matter, weeks matter more, and “good enough” is not good enough. If the cost of using the Northern Triangle strategy exceeds the benefits, the initiative will fail. Making the program a success will require all parties to step up their game.