Commercial Fishing and Seafood Business Act of 2023

The Commercial Fishing and Seafood Business Act of 2023 (H.R. 614) would expand the number of temporary foreign workers allowed to work in the American seafood industry by exempting them from the annual federal cap on H-2B visas. Under current law, only workers processing fish roe (eggs) are exempt from this 66,000-person limit; this bill would extend that exemption to include workers on commercial fishing vessels, shrimp trawlers, and those processing any type of fish or fishery products. For citizens, this legislation aims to address labor shortages in the seafood supply chain, potentially increasing the availability and stabilizing the cost of domestic seafood products.