The Trump administration will make it easier for individual seasonal workers who are “essential to the US food supply chain” to remain in the country by temporarily amending visa requirements.

The regulation, set to publish in the Federal Register on Thursday, applies to H-2B visas intended for seasonal workers and is designed to help US employers who rely on foreign workers. Qualified employers who are concerned workers will be unable to enter the US due to travel restrictions prompted by the coronavirus outbreak can employ those already in the US with certain visa status.

Workers already in the US will be allowed to stay longer without first returning to their home countries and can start right away without waiting for full approval, making it easier for employers who can’t employ workers from overseas to pick from the pool in the country.

In April, the Department of Homeland Security made similar changes for foreign workers directly working in the agriculture industry.

Some of the jobs impacted by the latest change could include the processing, manufacturing and packaging of human and animal food; transporting food from farms, or manufacturing or processing plants; and the selling of food, including restaurants.

The latest move follows President Donald Trump’s executive order in April limiting green cards. Stephen Miller, Trump’s lead immigration adviser who has led the push to limit immigration during the coronavirus pandemic, cast that order as a first step towards reducing the flow of immigrants, according to administration officials.

Since then, aides have been developing follow-up actions to limit the number of guest workers — a key exemption from the April order. H-2B visas, which allow employers to bring foreign workers to the United States for temporary non-agricultural jobs, such as landscaping, hospitality and other industries, were among the visa categories being assessed.

Trump’s political advisers view the immigration steps as motivating for his base supporters at a moment when the President’s key election message — a strong economy — is badly weakened by the pandemic. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday that the US economy lost 20.5 million jobs in April, the significantly sharpest and largest decline since the government began tracking the data in 1939.

The Justice Department’s inspector general is reviewing the Trump administration’s decision to keep the nation’s immigration courts open while the coronavirus swept through the United States.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the agency within the Justice Department that oversees the immigration court system, came under increased criticism from immigration judges, attorneys, and prosecutors for proceeding with immigration hearings despite social distancing guidelines and shelter in place orders.

Eventually, the agency postponed hearings scheduled for immigrants who are not in detention, providing some reprieve and resulting in less traffic at the court, but hearings for immigrants in detention, including children, continue to proceed.

It made incremental changes to court operations in the first weeks of the outbreak, often late at night and through Twitter, frustrating immigration judges and lawyers who repeatedly urged the agency to close courts altogether.

According to the inspector general’s website, the office will “assess EOIR’s communication to staff, parties to proceedings, and the public about immigration court operations; its use of personal protective equipment; its use of worksite flexibilities; and its ability to mitigate health risks while maintaining operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The concerns about the Justice Department’s approach prompted an unprecedented alliance between immigration judges, prosecutors, and lawyers who joined together to call for courts to be closed.

The National Association of Immigration Judges, a union representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement trial attorneys, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, collectively, called for the closure. The Justice Department has since closed some immigration courts, while others remain open only for filings and hearings of people already in custody.

On June 1, 2020, the National Visa Center will no longer accept or respond to inquiries through the mail. The National Visa Center claims to have modernized the way they pre-process visa applications. This has allowed NVC to streamline services to case parties and to U.S. Embassies and Consulates. Elimination of paper correspondence is the next step in this modernization. This change will further help them streamline and provide better services for all involved.

Any unsolicited mail post-marked June 1, 2020, or later will not receive a response and will be destroyed. You will need to submit all your inquires through the Public Inquiry Form at https://nvc.state.gov/inquiry.

On March 18, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services temporarily suspended in-person services at its field offices, asylum offices, and application support centers (ASCs) to help slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). USCIS is readying offices to reopen on or after June 4. Employees in these offices are continuing to perform mission-essential services that do not require face-to-face contact with the public while the offices are closed.

While offices are temporarily closed, USCIS will continue to provide limited emergency in-person services. Please call the USCIS Contact Center for assistance with emergency services.

USCIS field offices will send notices to applicants and petitioners with scheduled appointments and naturalization ceremonies impacted by the extended temporary closure. USCIS asylum offices will send interview cancellation notices and automatically reschedule asylum interviews. When the interview is rescheduled, asylum applicants will receive a new interview notice with the new time, date, and location of the interview. When USCIS again resumes operations for in-person services, USCIS will automatically reschedule ASC appointments due to the temporary office closure. Individuals will receive a new appointment letter in the mail. Those who had InfoPass or other appointments must reschedule through the USCIS Contact Center once field offices are open to the public again. Please check to see if the respective office has been reopened before calling the Contact Center.

For the latest information on the status of an office, visit https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/uscis-office-closings.

On March 26, the president signed P.L. 116-133, which establishes that a foreign-born child of a U.S. citizen member of the armed forces or a government employee may automatically acquire U.S. citizenship even if the child is not residing in the United States.