FALMOUTH, Mass.(AP) – Cape Cod, long a tourist mecca, has relied for years on luring summer help from around the globe: Jamaica, South America, Europe. In recent years, it’s taken longer than usual to get the temporary visas to hire foreign workers – known as H2B visas – because the 66,000 cap was reached long before the Cape’s high season.

Last month, under pressure from merchants and industry leaders, Congress passed legislation that would exempt from the cap foreign workers who have been hired in previous years. It can take upwards of 60 days to process visa applications, though some business owners have said they plan to pay a $1,000 fee to expedite them so they can get workers approved in about two weeks.

Bill Zammer’s four restaurants host more than 500 weddings each year. To cook and clean for the guests who come through his facilities, he needs a staff of 350 during high season. But he and other business owners complain they can’t fill their available positions with locals.

“The problem on the Cape is the people don’t want to work” during the summer, Zammer said. “We still advertise for people, and we don’t get them.” So six years ago, Zammer turned to seasonal work visas.

Now, he employs 84 Jamaicans who come to the United States on the visas. They travel to Falmouth in the spring, live in housing Zammer provides and return home at the end of the season.

Zammer gets a seasonal staff for his restaurants, and workers get as much as $1,000 a week in wages and tips, the benefit of what he calls “the finest guestworker program there is.”

An increasing demand for temporary foreign workers meant the cap was exhausted months ago. Although Congress eased restrictions, it was too late for some businesses to get workers in time for this year’s summer season, said Wendy Northcross, chief executive officer of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce.

“People would have preferred to have a lot of their staff here,” she said. Of the 25,000 seasonal Cape workers, as many as 6,000 of them have been H2B workers in the past.

The change made 35,000 more visas available nationwide by not counting returning workers toward the 66,000-person quota. Since the May change, U.S. Customs and Immigrations Services has received petitions for 11,000 workers. That’s not more than usual, but the new rules mean those petitions could be approved; they would likely have been rejected before, according to Christopher Bentley, spokesman for USCIS.

But the changes won’t affect business operators who don’t use H2B workers, including Paul McBride of Red Jacket Resorts. McBride operates five different Cape resorts.

McBride previously hired foreign workers by applying for the H2B visas, but decided about five years ago to instead hire foreign students by using what are known as J1 visas, which allow foreign students to experience American culture.

Students’ schedules work better for McBride; workers arrive in late June or July and stay through McBride’s busy Columbus Day weekend.

“I can’t say that we’re 100 percent staffed correctly in the spring,” McBride said, but he fills the schedule during those months with local students and residents.

At Zammer’s Coonamessett Inn, Henry Bernard helps his co-workers set tables before lunch. He’s worked as a seasonal employee for eight years and has been a waiter at the Coonamessett for the past five. He knows the drill – from the intricacies of the visa-application paperwork to setting the dining room.

Each spring, the 46-year-old Bernard leaves his wife and three children in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and travels to Falmouth. He stays through autumn. It’s a long time to be separated from his family, he said, but it’s worth it. With tips, he can make more than $12,000 for the season, a good wage in Jamaica.

“I’m loving it,” he said, grinning.

Employers like Zammer “know how important it is for us to be here,” Bernard said. “It means a lot, for us and for them.”