WASHINGTON — Five former communist European countries have been added for the first time to the list of nations whose citizens can work temporarily in the United States on special guest worker visas, officials said Friday.
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Macedonia and Slovenia were added to a list of countries whose nationals are eligible to participate in programs that allow US employers to bring in foreign nationals to fill jobs in the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said.
Most of the other newcomer countries on the list were in Oceania — Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuval and Vanuatu. The Caribbean island nation of Barbados was also newly listed.
In total, 53 countries are eligible this year for the temporary guest-worker visas, called H-2A and H-2B.
The list will be published in a Federal Register notice on January 18, 2011 and is valid for one year.
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