Texas shrimpers in need of workers
Texas shrimpers in jeopardy with loss of workers from changes in visa program
Amid concerns that American workers were being passed over for foreigners, Congress chose not to renew the visa cap exemption that many shrimpers in Brownsville need to hire seasonal workers.
BROWNSVILLE — The boats docked at the Port of Brownsville Shrimp Basin should have been filling their hold with plump Louisiana shrimp. Instead, a smattering of salty dogs milled about boat decks, pondering their empty nets and the fast approaching start of the commercial shrimp season in Gulf waters off the Texas coast.
Leonard Leyva, a looming presence on the docks, manages 15 shrimp boats for Zimco Marine. If federal immigration officials don’t approve seasonal visas for deckhands from Mexico, Leyva will be short 30 men when the season begins.
“We’ve gotten workers after the season started before,” said Leyva. “But to actually have none of our seasonal workers at this point leaves us dead in the water.”
Every year businesses across the country vie for just 66,000 visas to employ seasonal foreign workers. The allotment of visas, known as H2Bs, are split between winter and summer jobs, and according to the Department of Labor, there have been more than 120,000 requests for the sought-after visas. Even President Donald Trump uses dozens of H2B workers at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach, Fla., club.
Most years, to accommodate demand for workers, Congress approves an exemption to the visa cap, allowing businesses in qualified industries to hire returning employees who have worked in at least one of the previous three years. Yet amid concerns that American workers were being passed over for foreigners, Congress chose not to renew the visa exemption in the December stopgap spending bill.
As part of the government spending bill passed in May,
Congress gave Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly the authority, with input from the Labor Department, to dole out thousands of additional visas. The department said recently it will distribute the visas in late July, deciding that American businesses would be harmed without their temporary employees.
But before these returning workers receive visas, they must first pass an interview at an American consulate in their home country, delaying their arrival by up to a month. For Texas’ shrimping industry, pummeled by cheap imports of farm-raised shrimp from Asia, the damage is already done.
“It’s going to be devastating,” said Andrea Hance, executive director of the Texas Shrimp Association. “During the peak season, these boats catch approximately $4,000 worth of shrimp per night, so every night the boat is not fishing, we are losing money.”
Of the roughly 1,000 shrimp boats trawling in the Gulf of Mexico, around 550 are Texas-based, including 180 vessels that dock in Brownsville and Port Isabel. Each boat has a permanent crew that includes a captain, a rig man and header, responsible for removing shrimp heads. It’s during the peak season — from mid-July through October — that most boats require two extra headers.
Criticism from unions and advocates who support reduced immigration say that employers don’t do enough to recruit from the domestic labor pool, preferring instead to exploit low-wage foreign workers. But Hance points out that businesses scour the local labor pool for workers — advertising online and in newspapers, and hosting job fairs. Before a business can hire a foreign worker it has to prove to the Labor Department that it cannot find an American to do the job.
Locals don’t last
Despite an unemployment rate approaching 8 percent and a median household income of just over $34,000, most local hires don’t last more than a few days, Brownsville employers say. Earlier this year, Matagorda County held a job fair for the 100 boats that make up the Palacios shrimping fleet. Only two people showed up. Of the 50 locals hired in May to work aboard Brownsville’s shrimp boats, all but five have quit.
Craig Wallis, 65, has long relied on the steady hand of his H2B workers from Mexico. Without his full complement of 20 headers to start the Texas season, Wallis considered docking his seven boats. Reluctantly he hired lessexperienced headers, sending six crews to shrimp off the coast of Louisiana in May.
“I hope they don’t get hurt,” Wallis said, “and I hope they finish the trip without any problems.”
When a shrimp boat leaves port, the owner has already bet thousands of dollars on a successful voyage. A disgruntled employee who has to be returned to port before the monthlong expedition runs its course can cripple an operation.
‘Quality’ — not ‘cheap’
Returning workers are a safe bet, and businesses count on their skill deheading shrimp. After the requisite paperwork is filed and legal expenses are paid, the cost of hiring seasonal crew members exceeds $2,000 per H2B visa, but it’s an investment that is well worth the expense, according to Wallis.
“There’s a misconception that we’re looking for cheap labor,” Wallis said. “That’s not it. We’re looking for quality labor, because we get paid on quality of shrimp.”
A single shrimp boat can haul up to 45,000 pounds of shrimp. Sixty-five percent of the sale goes to pay the boat owner; the captain and rig man earn most of what remains. A header is paid between $10 and $15 per 100 pounds during the peak season, depending on quality of the catch.
A handful of wholesale shrimp buyers largely determine the price per pound of shrimp. Supply and demand also affect price, yet favorable market conditions are not always reflected in the price paid to the boat owner. Most businesses struggle to break even.
Matagorda County Judge Nate McDonald, surely the tallest, and selfproclaimed loudest, county judge in the state, described an industry navigating turbulent waters, where some businesses are entertaining offers to sell their boats.
“We’re about to jettison a whole industry because of folks not understanding the nature of the shrimping business,” McDonald said. “We all work together, we’re a big team, but without workers, we’re on the sideline.”
McDonald says there is more at stake than the Palacios shrimp fleet alone. The industry supports direct and peripheral jobs, including welders and technicians, and scores of jobs in the packaging facilities that await the crustaceans scooped from the Gulf.
Each time a boat crew sets out to sea, it spends about $2,000 just for groceries purchased from local grocers. Should any boats leave the market, it would send a ripple through the coastal economy, and drain taxable assets from local coffers.
An ironic quandary
Part of the challenge of hiring domestic workers is the job’s temporary nature, explained Israel Linarte, director of Marine and Industrial Safety Association. Moreover, few people demonstrate a willingness to leave their families for four to six weeks at a time.
“If you tell the American worker that you are offering a temporary job, which is low skilled, with no benefits, they’d rather keep applying for a steady job at Walmart,” said Linarte, who helps shrimpers from Brownsville, Port Isabel and Palacios apply for between 200 and 300 H2B visas every year. So far, none of the visas requested this year have been approved.
Though conservative principle prioritizes American workers, according to Rep. Blake Farenthold, RCorpus Christi, the dilemma facing Texas shrimping underscores the need for guaranteeing certain guest worker jobs under immigration law.
“I suspect we’re going to find that for many jobs there simply aren’t enough people to take them,” Farenthold said. “My fear is that it’s too late for our shrimpers.”
Over the past 25 years, the Texas shrimping industry has shed about 70 percent of its fleet, Hance said, blaming it on overregulation and the flood of cheap foreign shrimp.
Texas shrimpers say they need their H2B workers before the Texas season opens in mid July. Unlike some industries, the shrimping season is set by the life cycle of shrimp, and the government. More than two-thirds of the annual production is caught between July and October, when shrimp are at peak size.
Adding insult to financial injury, this year’s shrimp harvest is shaping up to be a bumper crop. But it’s looking like there won’t be enough workers to take advantage of that.
“About 80 percent of the boats will go fish when our season opens, but with a skeleton crew,” Hance said. “The other 20 percent of boats will simply leave the boats tied up because the liability of hiring an inexperienced worker is too high.”
anelsen@express-news.net twitter.com/amnelsen