Maine
Maine businesses say H-1B visas are critical to filling labor gaps
Idexx, which is headquartered in Westbrook, is one of the Maine companies with the most H-1B visa approvals. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald
An ongoing clash between Republicans over visas for highly skilled immigrants is bringing new attention to the program, which Maine business and immigration experts say is vital to filling jobs in some of the state’s fastest-growing industries amid a tight labor market.
The visas, known as H-1B visas, allow 65,000 skilled workers to come to the U.S. each year to fill specialized jobs that require at least a bachelor’s degree, often in technology, health care, higher education, scientific research or other STEM fields.
Nationally, tech giants like Tesla, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Apple use H-1B visas to source thousands of higher-level employees. Locally, they’re favored by companies like The Jackson Laboratory, Eastern Maine Medical Center, the University of Maine, Idexx and Wex.
The program made headlines last week after Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who’ve been tapped to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency, defended the visas and the need to bring “the best and the brightest” into the United States. Musk, who grew up in South Africa and is now the richest man in the world, wrote on X, the social media platform that he owns, that H-1B visas are the reason he and many other immigrants have found success living and working in the U.S. He said he was prepared to “go to war on this issue.”
But anti-immigration Republicans have criticized the program as a way to take well-paying jobs away from Americans and hand them to foreign workers for less money. The H-1B visas have also been criticized by progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who argued that companies abuse the program. He likened the visa recipients to “low-wage indentured servants from abroad.”
President-elect Donald Trump has historically opposed the H-1B visa program, believing companies should prioritize American labor over hiring foreign workers. In 2020, he restricted several forms of legal immigration, including access to H-1B and H-2B visas, which are used for jobs in fields like hospitality and construction.
But last week Trump appeared to change course and defended the program, siding with Musk, saying the country “needs smart people.”
‘HARDER TO MEET STAFFING’
The apparent shift is welcome news to many companies — including dozens in Maine — that rely on the program.
Eastern Maine Medical Center and The Jackson Laboratory are consistently the top two Maine entities to request H-1B workers. In 2024, the laboratory requested 37 visas and the hospital requested 34. In 2023, they requested 51 and 45 visas, respectively.
Eastern Maine Medical Center has roughly 120 H-1B employees at a given time, said Paul Bolin, executive vice president and chief people and administrative officer for Northern Light Health, the hospital’s parent company.
“Things have gotten worse since the pandemic,” Bolin said.
The state isn’t producing enough nurses to meet the need, so the hospital is still reliant on traveling and international nurses and medical staff.
“If those are further restricted, it would make it that much harder to meet our staffing needs,” he said.
Sarah Joughin, senior associate director of the Office of International Programs at the University of Maine, said the program is vital to both the university and the broader University of Maine System. In 2024, the university system was approved for 30 H-1B visas, 24 of which were for positions at the flagship campus in Orono.
According to Joughin, the program “enables our institutions to attract and retain highly skilled professionals from around the world, ensuring access to a global talent pool essential for advancing research, innovation, and academic excellence. This is particularly critical in specialized fields where domestic expertise may be limited, such as engineering, computer science, and advanced research disciplines,” she said, adding that the national shortage of qualified STEM professionals has made it difficult to recruit U.S. citizens for more specialized roles.
In an emailed statement, the Jackson Lab also reinforced the importance of the program.
“JAX — and the U.S. scientific community at large — depends on the H-1B visa program to foster international collaboration and drive groundbreaking research. The diverse expertise and innovative perspectives the international community contributes are crucial to advancing our mission to improve human health,” it said.
SMALL BUT MIGHTY
On top of the 65,000 yearly cap, an additional 20,000 visas are available to workers who have received an advanced degree in the U.S.
Universities, nonprofits affiliated with universities and nonprofit or government research organizations are exempt from the cap. The visas are good for three years and can be extended to six.
The specialized work visas are different from H-2B visas — the temporary work authorizations that many of Maine’s seasonal and tourism-based businesses rely on each year.
H-2B visas are issued when there are not enough U.S. workers able, willing, qualified and available to do temporary work, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Business owners have to prove that they tried to hire in the U.S. and that hiring foreign workers will not adversely impact the wages or working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.
H-1B visas, however, do not require proof that the business owner tried to recruit within the U.S.
Like the H-1B visas, there is a 66,000 cap, but the Department of Homeland Security frequently releases more. In November, the federal government announced an additional 65,000 H-2B visas.
It was welcome news to Maine’s seasonal businesses, which last year were approved for just shy of 2,000 H-2B workers.
Comparatively, Maine employers last year were approved for 320 H-1B workers — 148 new positions and 172 extensions.
Patrick Woodcock, president and CEO of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, warned against discounting the program as less important for its size.
Patrick Woodcock
“It is some of the fastest growing companies in the state that are utilizing it,” he said. “The program has been modest in numbers, but I think in terms of economic output for the state, they really have been pretty consequential.”
H-2B visas are critically important, especially in the increasingly tight labor market of the last few years, but the need for H-1B visas will likely only increase as the state tries to combat an aging population and declining workforce participation.
The number of H-1B new or extended workers in Maine has been increasing over the last decade, with a low of 217 in 2015 and a high of 342 in 2022. It was not immediately clear how many total workers are in the state at a given time because people in the second or third year of a visa are not counted in yearly totals.
“This is an incredibly important program to supplement our existing workforce … and it is critical to maintain some of the progress we’ve seen economically in recent years,” Woodcock said.
AN EMPLOYMENT ‘WORKHORSE’
Many people now on or seeking an H-1B visa came to the U.S. through a different visa program for school, and one to three years after graduation need an employer to sponsor a special skills visa to stay, said Stefanie Trice Gill, founder and chief recruiter of IntWork, a Maine recruiting firm that specializes in pairing immigrants with employers.
“Often they’re with people who’ve been working with them for some time, and the employers just can’t afford to let them go,” Trice Gill said. “It’s much better for employers to be able to bring someone to their tech company in Maine than to have to leave Maine to find workers.”
Trice Gill said she does not work with many H-1B visa holders, though the agency is interested in doing so — the immigrants who go through IntWork are often already living in Maine and already have work permits. They don’t need sponsorship.
“But even with that supply, employers still struggle to fill key positions,” she said.
According to Trice Gill, immigrants are more likely to have a master’s degree in a STEM field than a U.S.-born candidate, she said.
“For those professions that require an advanced degree, we can’t meet the need without considering immigrant candidates,” she said. “As the U.S. industry grows, the workforce has been declining. Even with all the effort to get U.S. citizens to study STEM professions, there’s still a big shortage of skilled STEM professionals.”
Marcus Jaynes, an immigration attorney with Landis, Arn and Jaynes in Westbrook, called H-1B visas the “workhorse of temporary employment” for professional positions.
The 65,000 to 85,000 cap is barely touching the demand.
“Last year there were half a million registrations in the annual lottery,” said Jaynes, who specializes in business and employment-related immigration law. “That’s a really high contrast. It shows very clearly that employers are looking to bring on a lot more H-1B workers than they can.”
The cap is already too low, so further limiting the number would be challenging, Jaynes said.
“If the program sees restrictions, it’s going to hurt the individual companies that can’t access the program, but it’s also going to hurt the economy,” he said.
Jaynes is encouraged by Trump’s recent statements favoring the program but said there’s still “a lot of room for damage to be done” by restricting the program through other means than the cap, like raising the minimum prevailing wages to make them less accessible to smaller companies.
“There’s lots of speculation about what may happen,” he said.
Outdoors
The BDN outdoors section brings readers into the woods, waters and wild places of Maine. It features stories on hunting, fishing, wildlife, conservation and recreation, told by people who live these experiences. This section emphasizes hands-on knowledge, field reports, issues, trends and the traditions that define life outside in Maine. Read more Outdoors stories here.
The weeks after ice-out are prime time for trout and salmon fishing in Maine.
While many anglers rely on live smelts, tandem streamer flies or classic lures like DB Smelts and Mooselook Wobblers, several Maine companies are producing lures that catch plenty of fish of their own.
I reached out to four Maine lure makers and asked them to send me their best catches from the last month, along with the lure that caught them.
Here’s what they sent.
Pine State Sports Supply
Owned by Justin Blouin and based in Lisbon, Pine State Sports Supply was founded in 2023. The company offers several styles of spoons and plugs designed to imitate smelt, dace, shiners, alewives and other baitfish. All trolling spoons are made by hand.
The Harry Lure
The Harry Lure is owned by Adam Bergeron. Founded by Harry Ellison, the lure was developed on New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee. Bergeron moved the company to Kennebunk and began stamping lures there in March 2024. Unlike traditional concave spoons, the flat lure is designed to swing side to side and flash light as it moves through the water.
Northeast Troller
Founded by Christian Carlson in 2016, Northeast Troller produces custom trolling and casting spoons from its shop in Thorndike. Carlson, who is also a taxidermist, began making spoons as a passion project and thank-you gift for his clients. The spoons are CAD-designed, painted and assembled in Thorndike, and tested on the water before production.
Dream Catcher Lures
Dream Catcher Lures are made by Jesse Dicker in Lincoln. Established in 2020, the company produces a variety of lures for salmon, lake trout and other species.
Its lineup includes a smelt series, trout casting and trolling spoons, dodgers, jerkbaits, bass poppers, jigs and worm-bait rigs.
Earlier this spring, Registered Maine Guides Jake Rackliff and Adam Bergeron landed a 10-pound rainbow trout on a Dream Catcher Lures Solid Pink UV.
WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s no shortage of competitive, high-stakes races and candidates with famous last names in Maine’s state primary on Tuesday.
Primaries for U.S. Senate and U.S. House will set the stage for a midterm general election in which Maine is expected to play a critical role in deciding control of both chambers. Maine voters will also have the opportunity in November to demonstrate the state’s fiercely independent streak when it comes to electing a new governor.
READ MORE: Amid controversial Senate campaigns, Paxton and Platner visit Washington to shore up support
The races feature the son of a U.S. senator, the daughter of a congresswoman, the brother of a former governor and the nephew and cousin of two presidents.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins is unopposed for renomination to a sixth term, which would put her on track to become the chamber’s longest-serving member from Maine.
Collins, the only Senate Republican to represent a state that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris carried in 2024, is a pivotal figure in the effort to win control of the chamber in November. The 51% of the vote she received in her 2020 election bid was her poorest showing since the 49% she received in her first successful run in 1996. She is frequently at the top of Democrats’ list of incumbents to oust, but her Democratic opponents have never surpassed the 44% mark in her five previous races.
READ MORE: Platner’s wife calls reports about Senate candidate’s explicit texts with women ‘shameful’
Graham Platner is the leading contender for the Democratic nomination to challenge Collins. He’s a Marine and U.S. Army veteran who took up oyster farming following combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Platner originally faced a competitive primary against Gov. Janet Mills, the preferred candidate among some national Democratic leaders, but the second-term governor dropped out of the race in April citing fundraising challenges.
Platner has two remaining primary opponents, one of them a write-in candidate. Mills is still on the ballot, despite suspending her campaign.
As of May 20, Platner led all candidates, including Collins, in fundraising for the cycle, although Collins sat atop a larger war chest.
WATCH: Dissecting what the latest primary races mean for November elections
He received key early backing from Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who reiterated his support despite recent allegations that Platner had sent sexually explicit text messages to several women while married. Platner was embroiled in another controversy earlier in the campaign regarding a tattoo he once had that was recognized as a Nazi symbol.
In the 2nd Congressional District, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden announced in November that he would not seek a fifth term in a district Trump won in 2024, along with its one electoral vote. Maine is one of two states that allocates some of its presidential electoral votes by congressional district.
The Democratic field to replace Golden includes former congressional aide Jordan Wood, state Auditor Matt Dunlap and state Sen. Joe Baldacci, brother of Democratic former Gov. John Baldacci.
The winner will face former two-term Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who is unopposed for the nomination.
Wood has far outraised the field, including LePage, in campaign contributions, although LePage had the most money in the bank as of May 20.
In the gubernatorial primaries, state Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former state Senate President Troy Jackson, renewable energy company co-founder Angus King III, former state House Speaker Hannah Pingree and former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Deputy Director Nirav Shah all seek the Democratic nomination.
The Republican field includes former healthcare CEO Jonathan Bush, former U.S. State Department official Bobby Charles, former state Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason and businessman Ben Midgley.
King is the son of independent U.S. Sen. Angus King. Pingree is the daughter of Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree. Bush is related to Republican former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
The governor’s office in Maine frequently changes party hands. The state hasn’t elected consecutive governors from the same party in 74 years.
Maine is divided into 16 counties, but elections are run by the state’s hundreds of cities and towns, a practice common in New England. Portland is by far Maine’s most populous city and forms the heart of the state’s Democratic base. The two congressional districts largely track with the state’s political demographics. The 1st Congressional District along the Southern Maine Coast is heavily Democratic, while the massive 2nd District to the north includes the bulk of the smaller, more rural areas where Trump performed best.
The state uses a ranked-choice voting system in which voters rank the candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-place votes, the last-place candidate is dropped, and votes cast for that candidate are reallocated among the rest of the field according to the preferences of the dropped candidate’s voters. This process repeats until one candidate emerges with a majority of votes.
Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied.
When do polls close?
Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.
What’s on the ballot?
The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in contested primaries for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, state Senate and state House.
Who gets to vote?
Registered party members may vote only in their own party’s primary. In other words, Democrats can’t vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. Independent or unaffiliated voters may participate in either primary.
How many voters are there?
As of January, there were about 354,000 registered Democrats, about 309,000 registered Republicans and about 334,000 voters with no party affiliation.
How many people actually vote?
About 69,000 Democratic primary votes and about 60,000 Republican primary votes were cast in the gubernatorial primaries in 2022, when both nominees ran unopposed.
How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?
About 26% of the Democratic primary vote and about 12% of the Republican primary vote in the 2022 primaries for governor was cast before primary day.
As of Thursday, about 56,000 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election, about 33,000 from Democrats, about 13,000 from Republicans and about 10,000 from voters not affiliated with any party.
When are early and absentee votes released?
In the 2024 general election, the state’s most populous cities and towns tended to release results from all types of voting together at the beginning of the night.
How long does vote-counting usually take?
In the 2024 general election, the AP first reported results at 8:44 p.m. ET, or 44 minutes after polls closed. About 50% of the total vote had been counted by 12:54 a.m. ET, and counting stopped for the night at 4:11 a.m. ET. By 3:13 p.m. ET the day after Election Day, about 90% of the vote had been counted.
When will the AP declare a winner?
The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.
How do recounts work?
Under a 2025 law, recounts in Maine are automatic if the vote is tied. A candidate for statewide or multicounty office may request and pay for a recount, although the charges are waived if the vote margin is not more than 1% of the total votes cast or not more than 1,000 votes, whichever is less. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
Are we there yet?
As of Tuesday, there will be 147 days until the 2026 midterm elections.
— Robert Yoon, Associated Press
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PORTLAND (WGME) — Monday will be setting up to bring lots of sunshine with temperatures in the 70s and 80s across Maine.
Showers, thunderstorms, and rising humidity levels begin as early as Wednesday.
Planner for Monday, June 8th. (WGME)
The UV index will be very high at a 9.
Allergies continue to run moderate-to-high.
Birch, oak, and maples trees are the current allergens.
Temperature trend ahead this week. (WGME)
80s will be very common for the rest of the week, including the upcoming weekend.
Dew points ahead this week. (WGME)
Dew points will run near 60 at the coastline, indicating a sticky feel to the air.
Humidity will be on the rise, with dew points near 70 degrees by Thursday.
Rain chances ahead this week. (WGME)
Wet and stormy weather enters the forecast beginning Wednesday with afternoon and evening showers and storms.
More PM showers and storms will repeat on Thursday and Friday.
Wednesday evening. (WGME)
After bright spots in the morning on Wednesday, showers and storms will pop up by the late afternoon through the evening.
Thursday chance for showers and thunderstorms. (WGME)
A frontal passage will arrive midweek, bringing showers and storms to the area for the rest of the week. This will mostly occur in the afternoon.
Thursday and Friday will run warm, even hot, with temps in the 80s and low 90s inland.
As of Monday, there is a chance that Saturday starts with showers, but stay tuned for more updates throughout the week.
Do you have any weather questions? Email our Weather Authority team at weather@wgme.com. We’d love to hear from you!
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