When Clay Pinson left the Baton Rouge, Louisiana landscaping industry last year, he was more than ready to escape the “bureaucratic nightmare” he knows as the H-2B visa program, through which 40 or 50 of his former summertime laborers were hired.
Landscapers like Pinson, a former minority equity shareholder of Massengale Grounds Management, frequently employ temporary immigrant laborers who arrive in the U.S. under the H-2B visa program for short-term, non-agricultural jobs.
Now, many of these businesses are dealing with a shortage of seasonal workers triggered by the Trump administration’s tougher stance on immigration.
The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry confirms it hears rumblings from landscapers who are worried about not having enough people to work summer gigs. As does Cari Jane Murray, executive director of the Louisiana Nursery and Landscape Association, who says she hears concerns from many of the nearly 250 members of her organization.
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