Ag Labor Leader Says TN Visa Applications Becoming Difficult To Approve

In an interview with Brownfield Ag News, the National Pork Producers Council leader says that pork producers are seeing an increased number of TN visa denials for their prospective workers.

According to the interview, the scrutiny is over whether the position offered falls within one of the applicable TN visa occupational categories. This can be common in the agricultural industries as consular officers may be concerned whether applicants are truly working in professional-level TN occupations as opposed to filling manual labor roles that do not qualify for TN visa status. Job titles or job duties that are incongruent with the applicable TN occupation as defined in the Occupational Outlook Handbook, job sites that may not commonly employ 1 or more professional workers in the applicable TN occupation, and a low salary are all factors that could lead an officer to believe that a job offer may not fit within the TN occupational category.

This added scrutiny over whether a job offer is truly a professional-level TN occupation may be a result of some of the recent lawsuits TN visa workers have filed against companies who promised engineer jobs but placed applicants in manual labor roles.