March 14, 2019 — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Thursday pressed Trump administration officials to grant more work visas to immigrants, arguing seasonal laborers are a pillar of the Chesapeake Bay’s seafood industry.
Hogan, a moderate Republican weighing a 2020 primary challenge to President Trump, wrote to Cabinet secretaries that continuing to cap the seasonal visas that have been used by hundreds of migrant crab pickers for decades “could permanently damage Maryland’s seafood industry, causing . . . iconic family businesses to close and having a devastating impact on jobs in our state.”
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, Hogan argued that each of the roughly 500 seasonal crab pickers who used to migrate to Maryland’s Eastern Shore generates 2.5 jobs for U.S. citizens. He cited a University of Maryland study and said the loss of those jobs, in turn, “threaten the livelihoods of commercial crabbers and waterman.”