Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort wants to hire 61 foreign workers for the upcoming tourist season
President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club filed applications seeking permission to hire 61 foreign workers for the winter season, according to data published by the Labor Department on Thursday.
On July 3, Trump's club requested to employ 21 workers from overseas to serve as cooks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach from October 2018 to May 2019, and 40 more waiters and waitresses for the same period of time, reports Buzzfeed.
This is not the first time Mar-a-Lago has requested foreign labor. In 2017, applications were filed for 15 housekeepers, 20 cooks, and 35 waiters.
However, cooks requested this year will be paid $13.31 per hour, 3 cents less than those hired in 2017. Waiters hired this year will earn $12.68 per hour, compared to 2017's $11.88 per hour.
The private oceanside resort club faced financial loss when charities started canceling their fundraising events in light of Trump's comments regarding a rally that turned violent Charlottesville. Mar-a-Lago's Palm Beach competitors are no strangers to hiring foreign labor, placing their own requests with the Labor Department for additional workers.
Some say Trump's hiring of overseas workers contradicts his stance on "bringing back jobs" to Americans, and his strong criticism against companies like Ford Motors who have allocated manufacturing gigs outside of the U.S.
Sen. Marco Rubio called out Trump's hiring of foreign workers at Mar-a-Lago during the 2016 Presidential elections, to which Trump responded, "It's very, very hard to get people. Other hotels do the exact same thing."
On Friday, the White House posted a variety of news reports indicating the growth of the economy, like the Wall Street Journal report that unemployment is at 4 percent as more workers enter the labor force. The White House wrote: "The United States economy added a healthy 213,000 jobs in June, the latest in a string of positive headlines showing that confidence is surging, growth is accelerating, and jobs are plentiful in the Trump economy."
In 2017, CareerSource, a nonprofit job placement agency, told the Palm Beach Post it "knows plenty of American citizens willing to work at Mar-a-Lago." According to the Post, Mar-a-lago requests dozens of H-2B visas from the federal government every tourist season, which permits temporary employment in the U.S. to non-agricultural workers.
