Help Wanted: Trumps Seek Foreign Workers for US Businesses

What Trump Vinyards' application reveals about “foreign non-immigrant workers.”

ByABC News
April 1, 2016, 3:29 PM

— -- As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump has made protecting the American workers and bringing jobs back to the U.S. central to his campaign pitch.

“I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I tell you that,” Trump first declared last June when he announced his presidential bid. “I will bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, and other places.”

But in business, Trump and his family have made it a practice to manufacture much of their family-branded merchandise overseas and employ foreign workers in their stateside businesses.

In what has become one of the prominent examples of Trump’s use of foreign workers, his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida has sought U.S. Department of Labor permission to hire foreign workers to fill seasonal jobs as housekeepers, cooks and restaurant wait staff.

But it’s not just Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club that relies on foreign labor. So, too, does Trump Vineyard in Virginia, which is run by Trump’s son Eric.

U.S. Department of Labor documents show that the vineyard has sought approval to hire as many as 19 foreign workers under temporary H-2A agricultural visas for this year’s five-month growing season.

The application states that Trump Vineyard specifically sought “foreign non-immigrant workers” as farm workers because it anticipated “an insufficiency of qualified U.S. workers to meet these seasonal labor needs” and lists an hourly wage rate of $10.72 an hour for a 40-hour work week.

For his part, Donald Trump has defended his hiring of temporary foreign workers at his Mar-a-Lago club, saying it’s “almost impossible” to find Americans to fill the jobs.

The foreign workers are permitted at the club under H-2B visas, which allow employers to temporarily employ foreign workers for non-agricultural jobs when the employers can show an anticipated shortage of willing and able U.S. workers to fill the jobs.

From 2013 to 2015, 250 job openings have been posted for the club’s 8-month-long peak season, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Only four of those jobs have been filled by American workers.

All of the temporary Mar-a-Lago job postings for 2015, which are for the 8-month-long “peak-load” season are listed as full-time with 35 hours a week hourly wage rate for housekeepers is $10.07, $13.01 for cooks, and a $10.99 hourly rate for waiters and waitresses and no tips.

Neither the Trump campaign or the Trump Organization responded to ABC News' requests for comment.