US President Donald Trump's private Mar-a-Lago golf club in Palm Beach, Florida, has reportedly filed a request with the Department of Labour to hire 61 foreign temporary workers. As per the Job Order Records filed on Thursday and Friday, July 5 and 6, the Florida resort has requested for 61 H-2B visas, 40 of which were for servers, while 21 were for cooks.
These workers will be taken onboard from October until May and the wages have been set at $12.68 per hour for the servers and $13.31 for the cooks, reported Buzzfeed News.
If the Florida resort's request is approved, Mar-a-Lago will have 261 foreign temporary workers on the controversial H-2B visa.
What is the H-2B visa?
The H-2B visas are for temporary non-agricultural workers and employers requesting these must prove that there are not enough workers in the US who are "able, willing, qualified, and available to do the temporary work."
Meanwhile, this is not the first time that the Mar-a-Lago resort is making such a request. In January 2018, it had requested 70 H-2B visas for cooks, servers and housekeepers, reported CNN.
What happened to Trump's "Hire American" policy?
The president is known to speak about the "Buy American, Hire American" policy on several occasions and has often asked businesses to opt for US workers. However, it looks like the "Hire American" policy does not really apply to his businesses.
Trump has, in the past, said that it is almost impossible to find workers during the peak tourist season.
When ABC News' George Stephanopoulos asked him in an earlier interview about why his businesses hire so many foreign workers Trump had said: "I don't hire the people. I don't hire 'em. But I will tell you this. During the Palm Beach season, it is very, very hard to get people. During the season, you can't get people ... But if you look at all of the other places in Palm Beach, they're all doing exactly the same thing."
However, when Vox analysed the job records, it found out that three of Trump's properties had posted 144 openings for seasonal jobs between 2016 and 2017, and only one US worker was hired even though several Americans had applied. Rest all the jobs went to foreign temporary workers on H-2B visas.
In addition, the Trump Organisation is said to have hired at least 1,260 foreign workers between 2001 and 2016. And this may have to do with Trump's preference for foreign workers at his resorts. Former workers have told CNN that the president prefers to employ staffers who are female, young, attractive, especially those with Romanian or South African accents, which he thinks have an "exotic appeal."
