Trump Resort Turns Away Americans for Jobs While Hiring Foreign Workers

When GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump complains about foreigners taking away jobs from American citizens, he doesn't practice what he preaches. CNN Money did a followup story on the hiring practices of Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida after the news outlet obtained additional data from the U.S. Department of Labor:

The U.S. Department of Labor has confirmed to CNN that between 2013 and fall 2015, Trump's Mar-a-Lago club posted 250 seasonal job openings and filled four of those jobs with American workers. The club requested the rest of the staff be temporarily imported through the Federal government's H-2B visa process. Basically, Mar-a-Lago brings in its seasonal staff from overseas.

Donald J. Trump

Mar-a-Lago is a mansion that Donald Trump has turned into a members-only private club in Palm Beach, Florida. The wife of New York stockbroker E.F. Hutton built it in 1927. Mrs. Hutton, who would become Marjorie Merriweather Post, used Mar-a-Lago as a winter retreat for her and her wealthy Wall Street friends. Gilded in tile and other decorations, it reeked of the opulence of the pre-Depression roaring 1920s: Think "Great Gatsby," flamboyant parties, poolside waiters.

...

From 2013 to 2015, Mar-a-Lago was approved to hire 246 foreign workers by the U.S. Department of Labor with H-2B visas, which allow U.S. employers to temporarily import foreign workers to fill non-agricultural jobs that can't be filled with Americans.

To get approval for H-2B visas, employers must prove they need extra workers and that they made an effort to recruit domestic workers, contacted everyone who responded to ads and hired all qualified applicants. After receiving approval, employers must petition U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to bring foreign, temporary workers into the country.

Trump has made the case that he couldn't find American workers. "It's almost impossible to get help," the Republican presidential candidate told CNN last month. "And part of the reason you can't get American people is they want full-time jobs."

That is news to Tom Veenstra. He is senior director of support services at the Palm Beach County CareerSource office. It's a free service that links qualified job candidates with employers. And during the past two years, the agency has placed more than 50,000 people in jobs in Palm Beach County. Veenstra says he has no doubt he could fill Mar-a-Lago with U.S. workers.

"We have hundreds of qualified candidates for jobs like these," Veenstra told CNN. "That's what we do here. We help place local residents into jobs like those."

Did Trump use the free service? Only once, Veenstra says. After criticism about its hiring practices, Mar-a-Lago asked the Palm Beach County CareerSource office to send over qualified candidates for a single position. Veenstra says he sent four applicants, one was hired. 

Veenstra says there were no problems with the hire as far as he knows, but they never had another request from Mar-a-Lago.

Mar-a-Lago positions paid roughly $10 an hour for maids and housekeepers going up to $13 an hour for cooks, and about $11 for waiters and waitresses.

What is not reported is the why Trump would prefer to hire foreign workers over local American citizens.  The foreigners brought to work at the hotel on H-2B visas can only work for Trump's resort. They can not gain experience and then leverage better pay by going to work at another local resort.  Trump did the same thing bringing in undocumented Polish workers to build Trump Towers and his modeling agency bringing in foreign models on H-1B visas. 

This is yet more of the do as I say, not as I do attitude of the two-bit con artist known as Donald J. Trump.