In keeping with plan to legalize illegals before they land here, Traitor Joe has doubled H2-B visas (non-agriculture foreign workers) from 66,000 annually to nearly 132,000:

Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in consultation with the Department of Labor (DOL), announced that it expects to make an additional 64,716 H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas available for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, on top of the congressionally mandated 66,000 H-2B visas that are available each fiscal year. … The supplemental visa allocation will help address the need for seasonal or other temporary workers in areas where too few U.S. workers are available, helping contribute to the American economy. The H-2B visa expansion advances the Biden Administration’s pledge, under the Los Angeles Declaration for Migration and Protection, to expand lawful pathways as an alternative to irregular migration.

[DHS to Supplement H-2B Cap with Nearly 65,000 Additional Visas for FY 2024, DHS.gov, November 3, 2023]

DHS in consultation with @USDOL, announced that it expects to make the maximum allowable additional H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas, 64,716, available for FY 2024 on top of the congressionally mandated 66,000 H-2B visas available annually: https://t.co/mctvmNXWTH pic.twitter.com/B3vkddRnN4

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) November 3, 2023

The Biden Regime doubled them for a simple reason, David North of the Center for Immigration Studies explained last month. Employers are hiring the Great Replacement illegals Biden has imported and released without benefit of the program.

[T]he number of visas issued for this program for the summer of 2023 were about half those issued in the summer of 2022, as employers seemed to make use instead of the huge flow of illegal aliens (many with work permits) across the southern border,” North wrote:

In the months of June, July, and August 2022, the State Department reported it issued 33,370 H-2B visas; in the same three months in 2023 it granted 16,170 of them. That is a reduction of 51 percent.

The reason for this fall is certainly not that the government sought to discourage the program. Instead, it’s very likely that the large number of newly arrived asylum seekers, and others, found jobs with what had formerly been H-2B employers. These employers are often in the hotel, restaurant, or landscaping businesses. There is a 66,000 a year cap for these workers, which has often been loosened in one way or another in the past. Former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and residence, for example, has used H-2B workers for years.

[Confirmed: Data Shows that Border Surge Has Halved the Number of H-2B Visas Issued, October 25, 2023]

The idea that employers need more foreign workers is, of course, preposterous. No one with a brain believes that. Those employers might want, however, more cheap foreign labor, which, once imported, will be a force multiplier for Traitor Joe’s invading army of Great Replacement illegals.

The announcement landed late Friday afternoon, North observed, a typical Biden news dump after the leftist Mainstream Media’s worthies have already repaired to their watering holes or left town for the weekend [DHS – in Late Announcement – Frosts the Cake with 65,000 More H-2B Slots, November 3, 2023].