Sen. Collins Stresses Need for Job Corps, Quick H-2B Visa Processing to Labor Sec

Q&A on Job Corps

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Q&A on H-2B Visas

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Washington, D.C. - At a hearing to review the Department of Labor's (FY) 2027 budget request, U.S. Senator Susan Collins, Chair of the Appropriations Committee, emphasized to Acting Secretary Keith Sonderling that the Job Corps program has helped many young people in Maine and around the country successfully enter the workforce. Sen. Collins also asked the Department to improve the speed of processing H-2B visa applications to fulfill the seasonal needs of employers in Maine.

Q&A on Job Corps

Sen. Collins: Last year, the Department paused operations at Job Corps centers across the country, and halted enrollment for a time completely at Maine's two Job Corps centers. This caused significant uncertainty, distress, and disruption for both the students and the staff. I am very familiar with both of the Job Corps centers in the state of Maine. One is in Bangor, where I live, the other is in Limestone in northern Maine, where I'm from. I know that they have a record of preparing students well to go directly into the workforce by giving them the skills that they need, or to pursue higher education, or to go directly into the military.

In short, Job Corps provides young people with life-changing opportunities to develop workforce skills, earn credentials, and build a pathway to a successful future. I want to give you an example today. Joshua Scheff came to the Loring Job Corps Center in Limestone, Maine, to pursue advanced cybersecurity training. After graduating from Job Corps, Joshua went on to the Northern Maine Community College, where he was recently named Student of the Year in recognition of his academic excellence, leadership, and service to the campus. Following graduation, Joshua will return to the Loring Job Corps Center, where he has accepted a full-time position as the Job Corps center's IT administrator.

Stories like Joshua's, who came from a very difficult background, shows the effectiveness of Job Corps in helping students turn around their lives and pursue successful careers. While Congress rejected soundly, on a bipartisan basis, last year's budget, which proposed elimination of Job Corps, the Administration's actions have hurt Job Corps. For example, enrollment at Job Corps centers has fallen to roughly 55 percent.

These disruptions raise serious concerns about the Department's ability to fairly and accurately evaluate the program's effectiveness. When operations are paused and enrollments are halted, naturally participation rates, outcomes, and overall performance metrics are inevitably affected. I am very disappointed that the Department's 2027 budget request once again proposes eliminating Job Corps, and part of the Department's justification is the performance data that have been distorted by the Department's own actions.

You talk about eliminating ineffective, wasteful programs. None of us wants to fund ineffective, wasteful programs, but I know that that is not an accurate description of Job Corps. In light of the disruption that the Department caused and the uncertainty about the future of Job Corps, how can you use the metrics of decreased enrollments to fairly and accurately evaluate this program?

Acting Secretary Keith Sonderling: Well, thank you, Senator, for that story. I mean, that's a really important story, and it's touching. And those from our workforce development programs, those are the stories we want to hear. We want to see students get into these federally-funded programs from all different, diverse backgrounds, Job Corps specifically, 16 to 24, and have success.

In your centers in Maine, especially with shipbuilding, which is coming back to Maine, it's coming to Connecticut, it's coming to Rhode Island, that's the stories we want to hear, how students are getting into these federally funded programs and being efficient. But a lot of the statistics that we've seen on Job Corps don't show that specific story that you've told us, and we want more of those stories. So, the President's budget, while eliminating Job Corps, is moving money into the Make America Skills program to be able to still help students like that get into the specific programs they want, and have that very specific successful outcome, and that's what we want to see in all of our programs across the board.

Sen. Collins: Well, I'm glad that you mentioned the shipbuilding pipefitter program. That has been extraordinarily successful, and believe me, Bath Iron Works and other employers in Maine are so grateful for Job Corps providing that training, and those students go directly into the workforce, filling a gap, so I really think we need to take a second look at this.

Q&A on H-2B Visas

Sen. Collins: Let me just switch to one other issue in the time I have remaining, and that has to do with the H-2B visas. I realize the role of the Department of Homeland Security, but the Department of Labor plays a critical role here as well. Last year, in the state of Maine, we had more than 13 million tourists visit the state. We are a state of 1.3 million people, so ten times the population of Maine visited our state, and naturally, when you have that kind of disparity, employers in Maine simply cannot find the workers to meet the demand during peak months. And these tourists spent $9.4 billion in our state last year alone.

This is incredibly important to our economy, so H-2B visas are absolutely critical to fill this gap, but just this morning I met with two hotel owners who described the problems that they had. I continually hear from employers about the delays in the processing of H-2B applications, and for many of these businesses, timing is critical, and delays can have serious economic consequences.

I think personally that an employer who has a good record of five years of complying with all the laws, that we shouldn't count that employer against the numbers, and I also think we should bring back the Bush administration's Returning Worker Program, where someone who had worked one year, gone back home, came back, gone back home, doesn't count against the cap. And it's my understanding the Administration is open to those changes, but what steps is the Department of Labor taking to improve the timely processing of H-2B visa applications so that employers in Maine can access the workers they need in time to meet the seasonal demand?

Sonderling: I was able to travel with the Vice President to Maine last week, so I saw how beautiful it is this time of year, and I understand the economy really relies on those H-2B visas, especially in the summer. The President's budget does propose a new office at the Department of Labor, called the Office of Immigration Policy.

It pulls some of our immigration work out of other agencies to have one centralized source, to not only be able to process faster, but really have that customer service for workers, for employers who need these temporary work visas. So, we're very committed to that. It's been a big effort of ours in this Administration to make sure that seasonal workers have a process and have a dedicated office to be able to move that forward.

Sen. Collins: I look forward to working with you on that.

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