Mar-a-Lago asks to hire more foreign workers

President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida filed requests with the government on Thursday to hire 70 temporary foreign workers as cooks, housekeepers and servers at the private club, according to records posted by the Labor Department.

The jobs would begin on Oct. 1 and end in May 2018, according to the filings. Those positions would take advantage of the H-2B visa program, which allows U.S. employers to bring foreign nations to the country for temporary, non-agricultural work.

The Trump National Golf Course in Jupiter, Fla., also filed a request to hire temporary foreign workers as cooks for the same period of time.

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The requests came as the White House celebrates what it has designated “Made in America Week,” highlighting American-made products and re-upping the administration’s emphasis on bringing jobs back to the U.S.

Employers must establish that there are not enough American workers able or willing to fill the temporary positions in order to qualify for H-2B classification. 

The cook positions at both Mar-a-Lago and the golf course pay $13.34 per hour, according to the filings. The server jobs pay $11.88 per hour, while the housekeeping positions pay $10.33 per hour.

As a presidential candidate and in his first six months in office, Trump touted the importance of U.S. manufacturing and labor and savaged international trade agreements, saying they have killed American jobs. 

The president signed an executive order in April promoting what he has dubbed a “Buy American, Hire American” agenda. The order also tightened rules on granting H-1B visas to skilled foreign workers.

But the Trump administration moved to expand the H-2B program on Monday, saying it would offer an additional 15,000 visas because not enough American workers are willing or able to fill the country’s employment needs for the rest of the 2017 fiscal year.

Trump has defended the hiring of foreign workers at Mar-a-Lago, saying during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in September that “getting help in Palm Beach during the season is almost impossible.”