DONALD TRUMP CAN'T FIND ENOUGH AMERICANS TO WORK AT MAR-A-LAGO
Former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate hired more than 100 foreign workers in 2023, despite casting himself as an immigration hard-liner.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, supports policies that would tighten border security, and his support for constructing a wall along the United States-Mexico border has been a cornerstone of his political career since his 2016 presidential campaign.
However, some of his critics have pointed out that Trump's businesses, including the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, have long relied on foreign workers despite his support as president of measures that would have curbed immigration to the U.S.
Notably, it is not uncommon for businesses to hire foreign workers, particularly when they are unable to find U.S. citizens who are willing and able to fill those positions.
In 2023, Mar-a-Lago brought on a total of 136 foreign workers for seasonal work, according to Department of Labor data.
Mar-a-Lago made the following requests for foreign workers: 53 waiters and waitresses, seven hotel desk clerks, 17 housekeeping cleaners, five first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers, 24 cooks and five bartenders, according to the Department of Labor.
All but one request for a waiter or waitress was accepted. The requests were received on July 3, 2023, and were intended to cover October 2023 through the end of May 2024.
These workers were requested on H-2B visas, which apply to workers in nonagricultural positions. According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), employers petitioning for H-2B classification must prove that there are not enough U.S. workers who are "able, willing, qualified, and available to do the temporary work."
According to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, Florida's unemployment rate was just 2.9 percent in July 2023, lower than the national rate of 3.5 percent at the time.
They must also prove that the workers "will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers" and that the need is indeed temporary rather than a more permanent basis, according to USCIS.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign for comment via email.
While Trump's businesses, like many in the U.S., have long relied on foreign labor, the number of foreign workers hired at Mar-a-Lago, his golf clubs, and his winery increased in 2023, according to Forbes. That report found that Trump's businesses hired 170 foreign workers last year and a total of at least 1,670 temporary foreign workers since 2008.
In June 2020, the Trump administration announced an executive order limiting some employment-based visas for foreign workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a spike in unemployment across the United States.
The order added restrictions on H-1B visas for specialized, highly skilled workers, H-2B visas for nonagricultural seasonal workers, J-1 visas for exchange visitors and L-1 visas that companies use to transfer employees from other countries to the U.S.
2024-05-21T16:02:50Z dg43tfdfdgfd
