He wears the MAGA hat, cries “America first” at every opportunity and is quick to blame immigrants for the country’s failure, yet when it comes to practicing what he preaches Donald Trump is lacking.

Get this: at the end of 2016 and 2017, only one out of 144 jobs offered by three Trump properties in New York and Florida went to a US worker.

The rest were handed to foreign guest workers with H-2B visas, reports VOX:

The H-2B visa program allows seasonal, non-agricultural employers — like hotels and ski resorts — to hire foreign workers when they can’t find American ones.

The Trump administration temporarily expanded this guest-worker program in 2017 while restricting other avenues of legal immigration, including the H-1B program for high-skilled workers.

Why? Because the Trump Organisation is exactly the kind of company that relies on the H-2B visa program for low-skilled workers:

Unemployment in the Miami area has been low in 2016 and 2017 (4.5 percent as of December 2017), and it’s harder for employers in South Florida to find workers now than a few years ago. But Vox spoke to several labor economists in the state who were nonetheless puzzled that hotels or clubs would have such a hard time finding any service workers to hire.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Tobias Pfutze, an economics professor at Florida International University in Miami. “I haven’t heard anything about there being a labor shortage. The service labor market here is very flexible.”

Looking at recruiting files submitted to the US Department of Labor for the three Trump properties, hiring managers said they were “able to find and hire only one qualified American worker — a cook — for 144 open positions for servers, cooks, housekeepers, and bartenders”.

Here’s an example of one case:

In August 2017 alone, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach (Trump’s “winter White House”) sought permission to hire 70 servers, housekeepers, and cooks for eight months starting in October, according to recruitment reports submitted to the Department of Labor. In the paperwork, the club’s hiring manager explained the reason the club needed to hire temporary workers:

“Our temporary need is defined as a peak-load need and stems from the fact that The Mar-a-Lago Club operates in accordance with a private charter and is open to the membership throughout the year but with a well defined peak season between the months of October and May of every year. The period during which the foreign national’s services are needed is not unpredictable, subject to change or considered to be a vacation period for our employees who are hired on a permanent basis.”

Based on the paperwork submitted, the hiring manager fulfilled the minimum effort required by law to try to find American workers first: place an ad in the local newspaper for two days, notify past employees of the openings via US mail, and post the job notice in a visible place at the club for current employees to see. Employers are required to pay the average local wage for the advertised position. Mar-a-Lago offered $10.33 per hour for housekeepers, $13.43 for cooks, and $11.88 for servers (no tips).

Can you even.

Under the H-2B program, employers must first try to hire American workers — or legal immigrants already in the United States – at reasonable wages for their openings. Then, if unable to do so, they must ask the Department of Labor for permission to hire foreigners:

While many businesses may truly struggle to find local workers and rely on foreign workers to fill slots, the hiring practices at Trump’s properties certainly are out of step with his “America First” rhetoric and policies.

“If the president says ‘hire American,’ then the president’s businesses should hire American,” said Bruce Morrison, a Democrat and former Congress member from Connecticut who helped write the Immigration Act of 1990, which placed limits on the H-2B visa program.

“It’s a bullshit law written to ensure that employers don’t have to hire Americans,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, who normally applauds the president’s immigration agenda, but was displeased when Trump temporarily expanded the H-2B program in 2017.

And that, my friends, is proof that Trump doesn’t care about America.

[source:vox]