‘We are not getting them;’ La. crawfish industry facing worker shortage as visa problem continues

CROWLEY, La. (KPLC) - A visa cap, a partial government shutdown, and denied visa applications are threatening Louisiana’s crawfish industry, leaving most crawfish peeling plants without the seasonal workers needed to operate.

Alan Lawson, who runs a crawfish peeling plant in Crowley, said he relies on workers holding H-2B visas, a non-agricultural, capped seasonal work visa administered by the Department of Homeland Security.

This season, those workers have not arrived.

“There is no word. It’s over. We are not getting them. There are no visas available, and it’s not happening,” Lawson said.

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• Louisiana crawfish industry facing $300M threat amid cap on visa programs

Lawson believes government personnel cuts led to processing delays and lapsed deadlines. A partial government shutdown with the Department of Homeland Security compounded the problem.

Federal law requires facilities like Lawson’s to hire American workers first before turning to the guest worker program. Lawson said locals are not lining up for the gig.

“This guest worker program is very, very important for our ag economy, because we don’t have a need for these people in the off-season,” Lawson said.

Right now, Lawson has temporary workers through a temp agency partially staffing his plant. He says the problem with those workers is that they inconsistently show up and aren’t the skilled laborers that he is used to bringing in yearly.

Juan Antonio, an H-2A visa holder from Mexico, has worked on Louisiana crawfish farms since age 18. He said he relies on being a guest worker.

“Sometimes life is tough in Mexico, and you get used to this kind of job, and you just wait for a season,” Antonio said.

Unlike the H-2B program, the H-2A agricultural visa is uncapped but limited to agriculture. Antonio works the farming side of the operation, not the peeling plant.

The shortages currently being experienced mostly apply to the H-2B program, but Antonio says he experienced extreme delays in getting into the country this year.

“We usually start coming over here late January, or the first days of February. This time, it was late January when I started getting the letters from the immigration people. Usually, you get that on sometimes November or December,” he said.

Antonio says that he doesn’t often work with Americans despite the fact that the job is open to them.

“I know for some reason they have to put this program for locals first before they take a chance on us. If anybody applies, they have the right to work over here instead of us, so I always tell them, ‘Where’s the locals?’” he said.

When asked how the pay was, Antonio said, “I mean, it’s not super, but it’s good.”

Lawson later said the visa program’s minimum wage was just over $13 per hour.

A new study from the LSU AgCenter examined the economic consequences of the visa shortage on Louisiana’s crawfish industry.

“When you add up all together, the direct and the indirect impact, we’re looking at about $300 million. Again, that’s a worst-case scenario. That’s if we process no crawfish,” Dr. Kurt Guidry, who conducted the research, said.

Guidry said the $300 million figure represents a worst-case scenario but cautioned the question is not whether the shortage will have an impact, but how much of an impact it will have.

“Where there still may be crawfish tail meat that’s available, chances are, if we’re not able to process crawfish to the same level that we would normally have, some of that, much of that supply may be unfortunately imported crawfish,” Guidry said.

Ultimately, he said that the study is theoretical. He added that the crawfish season is married to the rice season, as they are rotational crops. He said this year’s rice season was one of the worst seen in over a decade. Farmers who were hoping to make up the difference with crawfish are stuck waiting to see how this season will pan out.

“Rice producers, who are also crawfish producers, really needed the 2026 crawfish year to be a really profitable one for them to fill in the gaps. And certainly, this disruption in H2B labor and any other type of market demand issues that we may have this year doesn’t lend itself to a highly profitable year for the average crawfish producer,” Guidry said.

Part of the problem, according to Guidry, is the fact that Louisiana’s crawfish market sells some crawfish live and some as crawfish tails or “processed.” Without enough demand due to processing plants being down, he says prices could drop too low for live crawfish. The industry also designates undesirable crawfish as “peelers,” or small crawfish that can be processed and sold for a profit, according to Guidry.

The LSU AgCenter’s full study on the H-2B program’s impact on the state’s crawfish industry can be read below: