Chesapeake Bay seafood processors say they're facing catastrophe this year because a cap on certain "guest workers" is keeping out immigrants who usually pick crabs and shuck oysters.
Migrant workers have come to dominate shellfish processing over the past decade -- doing dirty, repetitive work that machines can't and Americans won't, employers say.
But this year, the seasonal-work visa program that provides these laborers hit its limit of 66,000 workers on the earliest date ever, Jan. 3.
That has left many businesses empty-handed, including ski resorts in New England, fish plants in Washington state and numerous processors in Maryland and Virginia.
"People suddenly woke up to the fact that they're going to be out of business this spring," said Bill Sieling, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, which represents seafood plants around the bay.
In all, Sieling said, about 20 plants -- all on the Eastern Shore -- were not able to get the workers they applied for. Added together, their requests totaled about 800 workers, he said.
Now, members of Congress up and down the East Coast are lobbying for the cap on guest workers to be raised. And seafood processors are scrambling to find other workers or face shutting down for the season -- and possibly for good.
"When the crabs start running in the summer . . . and you don't have this infrastructure to pick them anymore, it's going to be bad," said Jack Brooks, president of the J.M. Clayton seafood company in Cambridge, Md. His company usually has about 30 immigrant workers.
But some immigration experts say lifting the cap on laborers is not the solution.
Mark Krikorian, of the Center for Immigration Studies, said that shellfish processors either should pay wages high enough to attract U.S. workers or invent a way to mechanize the work.
"The presence of these foreign workers creates a dependency" among employers, Krikorian said. "It's hard to wean away from it."
The visa problem was the subject of a meeting last night at W.H. Harris Crab House in Kent Narrows, Md. Several dozen representatives from the seafood processing business were joined by a few watermen, all telling stories of having their visa requests denied.
Several said that, if no migrant workers are available this year, a chain of U.S. workers including fishermen, truck drivers and office workers might be hurt.
"If we don't get these Mexican workers, we're all out of business," said Ronnie Jones, a crabmeat processor from Fishing Creek, Md.
