Earlier this month The Denver Post chronicled CoCal Landscape’s recruitment efforts, which included attempting to hire American workers and ultimately relying on the H-2B guest-worker visa program.
CoCal’s story, the article said, “encapsulates the complex relationship between American employers and temporary foreign workers.”
Over the past 25 years, Jesus “Chuy” Medrano—the founder of CoCal who immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico in the 1970s—has increasingly relied on the H-2B program to grow his landscaping business, though the Post report said he would prefer to hire locally to avoid the uncertainty of using the visa program.
This year, CoCal was denied visas for the 160 Mexican laborers it normally gets because Congress did not renew a 2016 rule that exempted “returning” workers from the annual H-2B cap. The Trump administration unexpectedly released 15,000 additional H-2B visas in July, so Medrano brought in workers for a short time, even though the landscaping season was nearly over.
Read the full story at The Denver Post.
Photo: CoCal Landscape
