The debate over immigration reform will be hitting ski areas this winter.

Resorts are usually the first of several seasonal businesses nationwide in the US that will be feeling the ripple effects of a change in federal law that cuts back in the number of visas for foreign workers brought in for temporary or seasonal jobs.

“The timing couldn’t be worse,” Parker Riehle of the Vermont Ski Areas Association told the Boston Herald.

Congress failed to renew a law allowing foreign workers who came to the United States over the last three years to return for another season without being counted against an annual cap on such workers.

The number of H-2B visas for non-agricultural seasonal and temporary workers is capped at 66,000 annually. Congress as passed extensions in the passed few years, because of the popularity, which exempted returning workers from the annual cap.

The latest extension expired September 30. That capped the number of H-2B visas at 33,000 for the first six months of fiscal year 2008 – less than half the number of visas issued for the same period a year ago.