A New York Timesreport published Thursday charges Donald Trump has hired a majority of foreign workers at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
"Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach describes itself as ‘one of the most highly regarded private clubs in the world,’ and it is not just the very-well-to-do who want to get in,” the piece begins.
The report looks at nearly 300 U.S. residents who have applied for jobs at the Mar-a-Lago club since 2010. Of those, 17 were hired, accounting for only six percent of local applicants, with area residents passed by for hundreds of foreign guest workers.
NYT reporters Charles Bagli and Megan Twohey point out how the Republican front-runner and part-time Palm Beach billionaire has made American jobs a core part of his stump since launching his campaign last summer.
Trump has regularly railed against trade laws that allow American jobs to be exported to countries like Mexico and China.
He has also highly criticized U.S. corporations that have outsourced jobs.
The controversial visa program Mar-a-Lago has taken legal advantage of allows employers to temporarily hire foreign labor when companies claim American workers are not available.
“Palm Beach is probably the hottest real-estate maybe in the world,” Trump told MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle on 'Morning Joe' last September following a CBS Miami report on his use of foreign workers at the Palm Beach resort. “And during the season in Palm Beach, it’s very, very hard to get help,” Trump claimed at the time.
“The only reason they wouldn’t get a callback is that they weren’t qualified, for some reason,” Trump told the Times earlier this month. “There are very few qualified people during the high season in the area.”
You can read the full report here, including an interview with a Delray Beach man who applied to Mar-a-Lago, but ultimately was never employed there.