Carnival & Fair Buzz

On Tuesday, the senate passed President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" and is currently pending final review by the house.  Despite efforts by the Seasonal Employment Alliance (SEA) to get their proposed H-2B Certified Seasonal Employer Designation language included, the bill, ultimately, the Senate did not include any visa or workforce related provisions, including Trump's Golden Visa. 

According to the SEA, "We always understood that the effort to include H-2B in the reconciliation was an uphill battle, but we are always going to make a push to get H-2B included in any moving legislative vehicle."

Reportedly, one of the major opponents of including any H-2B relief in the bill was Senator Grassley of Iowa. According to Grassley, the bill was intended for the President's priorities and absent White House direction, he would not include the language in the bill.

OABA's P-4 Visa Push

The OABA issued a statement to its membership on Wednesday to clarify that their P-4 visa bill, otherwise known as the CARE act (in the house) and RIDE act (in the senate) was never intended to be included in the Big Beautiful Bill.

"We want to make sure everyone understands that our P Visa language was not, nor was it ever intended to be, part of the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) that passed the Senate yesterday. Our P Visa language strategy is in a separate appropriations play. We will be reaching out to everyone via Zoom in the next two weeks to discuss our strategy for moving forward," stated the OABA in a memo to its membership.

Last Tuesday, OABA delivered a victory for the mobile amusement industry as the House Appropriations Committee adopted our Edwards P Visa Amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill with language mirroring much of CARE Act. 

To drive support for the amendment during the House Appropriations Committee markup session of the bill, OABA organize a grassroots effort, collecting 100+ letters of support from fairs/festivals, carnivals/concession operators, manufacturer/suppliers based within the targeted 64 congressional districts seeking their Representative to commit their supporting our amendment. 

See video below of the House Appropriations Committee during the markup process reading out, receiving testimony, and adopting OABA's P Visa Edward Amendment: 

https://www.youtube.com/live/P9jgSnD45L8

• Start Video @1:24:40
• End Video @ 1:55:00

OABA's amendment is now officially included in the Homeland Security Appropriations bill which just passed the committee mark up last week and now will be considered by the rules committee before going to the full House of Representatives for a vote on the bill as amended. 

H-2B Cap Relief Efforts

The SEA will now switch its efforts to making sure the same form of H-2B cap relief is included in the final version of the bill that has been included in previous years.