During a recent Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing, U.S. Senator from Maine Susan Collins (R) urged a top Biden administration official to issue an additional nearly 65,000 H-2B visas for temporary foreign workers.

Sen. Collins comments come after she joined her fellow Maine Sen. Angus King (I) in November to announce that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) is expected to grant more than 64,000 temporary nonagricultural worker visas to foreign nationals in fiscal year 2024 (FY24).

“Those are absolutely critical in my state, where 10-times the state’s population visits Maine,” Sen. Collins told President Biden’s DOL Secretary Julie Su at the Appropriations hearing.

“And I hope that you will be recommending to the Department of Homeland Security that it make available the full additional 64,716 H-2B visas for this fiscal year,” Collins added.