LOS ANGELES — The Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday that it will release up to 15,000 additional seasonal visas, known as H-2B visas, to businesses that prove they will be severely hampered without foreign workers.

Businesses in the tourism sector, many of which have been scrambling to clean hotel rooms, staff restaurants and perform other tasks during the peak summer months, welcomed the announcement but expressed concern that the government was offering too few visas, creating more red tape that could delay the arrival of workers to the tail end of the season.

“I am desperately needing help, but it is going to take me a long time to gather all the new stuff they’re demanding,” Sarah Diment, owner of the Beachmere Inn, an upscale seaside resort in Ogunquit, Me., said as she studied the requirements for the new visas. Still, she predicted, “those visas will be gobbled up.”