President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort turned away dozens of American workers and hired guest workers instead despite his claim that his companies rely on foreign workers because there are not enough American applicants.
Government documents obtained by BuzzFeed News show that at least 58 US workers applied for jobs as cooks, servers, and housekeepers at Mar-a-Lago and other Trump resorts between 2014 and 2018. Only one of them was hired.
Instead of hiring American workers, Trump’s resorts sought permission from the government to bring in more than 375 low-wage workers through the foreign guest worker program on short-term visas. All of the requests were approved by the government, BuzzFeed News reports.
Even as Trump decried immigrants taking jobs from American workers, his companies continued to apply for permission to bring even more foreign workers to his resorts. His companies sought to hire 600 employees through the program since he launched his campaign in June 2015.
“Before getting permission to hire workers from outside the US, employers are required to seek local applicants by advertising the jobs in local newspapers and with government-run job recruitment centers,” BuzzFeed News reported. “The ads are placed several months or more before the start date for the job, and employers are not required to advertise online. Records indicate the Trump properties complied with the recruiting rules, and year after year told the Labor Department that “there are not enough US workers to consider and hire.”
Trump’s properties hired undocumented immigrants too:
While Trump legally -- though hypocritically -- brought in hundreds of low-wage foreign workers at the expense of American workers, his companies also routinely hired undocumented immigrants.
Trump’s golf clubs in New Jersey and New York have recently fired numerous undocumented workers, The New York Times reported after several of them came forward to allege that the company sought to knowingly hire undocumented employees.
In February, lawmakers called on the FBI to investigate “the disturbing allegations” that the Trump Organization “routinely and knowingly hired undocumented immigrants.”
“Some of these brave workers have now decided to come forward and detail an elaborate ploy by the Trump Organization to systematically procure cheap immigrant labor and employ undocumented immigrants—despite knowing that the documents they provided were false,” ten Democrats said in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray. “In addition to this alleged criminal enterprise, the workers describe a culture of coercion, mistreatment, and instances of physical abuse.”
