H-2A Visa Overhaul Bill Introduced After 40 Years Without Statutory Reform

Forty years after Congress last touched the H-2A visa program at the statutory level, U.S. House Agriculture Committee chair Glenn Thompson introduced the Securing Agriculture's Workforce Act of 2026 on June 30 — a bill that Spudman describes as the first such statutory reform to the program in four decades. The H-2A program, established under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, allows non-immigrant foreign workers to fill temporary agricultural jobs when domestic labor is unavailable. That the program has gone unchanged at the statutory level for four decades — even as its usage has expanded enormously — is the backdrop against which this bill is being framed.

Spudman lays out the bill's structure around three stated goals: expanding access, controlling costs, and streamlining operations. On access, the legislation removes the requirement that agricultural work be seasonal, instead defining "temporary" as a job contract of 350 days or less, and it shifts authority for defining "agricultural labor or services" to the Secretary of Agriculture. On cost, it codifies recent reforms to the Adverse Effect Wage Rate methodology and simplifies program requirements. On operations, it requires federal agencies to build a unified online platform for employer communication and tracking, and it aims to clarify agency roles to reduce regulatory duplication.

• Removes the seasonal-work requirement while keeping a temporary designation capped at 350 days
• Codifies AEWR methodology reforms intended to make wage costs more predictable
• Mandates a single online platform across federal agencies for tracking and communication

The case for reform, as reported by Spudman, rests heavily on scale and cost trends. More than 300,000 H-2A visas were issued in 2024 — a 2766% growth rate from 1996 — indicating a program that has become central to agricultural labor supply far beyond its original scope. At the same time, increases to the AEWR from 2010 to 2025 outpaced inflation by 70%, a gap that helps explain why cost control is one of the bill's three named pillars rather than an afterthought.

Spudman reports the bipartisan bill is backed by the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Western Growers Association, the Ag Wage Reform Coalition, and more than 400 other agricultural groups — a broad coalition that suggests the underlying frustrations with H-2A's cost and administrative burden are shared widely across commodity and regional lines rather than isolated to one sector. John Hollay, president and CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, said the bill "finally seeks to provide the reform Farmers, Consumers, and our Economy needs," and described it as addressing "the exact challenges our organization and agricultural employers nationwide have focused on for years." Thompson himself framed the stakes in broader terms, stating there is "no greater national security threat than disruptions to our food supply," and said the bill "makes the practical, commonsense reforms required to prevent these disruptions."

What Spudman's reporting does not address is the bill's path through Congress from here, or how growers in specific commodities — including potato production, which relies on both seasonal and year-round labor depending on region and operation type — would be affected in practice by the shift away from a strict seasonality requirement. The removal of that requirement, paired with the transfer of definitional authority over "agricultural labor or services" to the Secretary of Agriculture, effectively moves a significant amount of interpretive power from statute into future rulemaking, which means much of the bill's real-world impact would depend on how that authority gets exercised rather than on the text as introduced.