(José Niño, Headline USA) President Donald Trump was strolling through the lobby of his Florida golf club earlier this year when a group of business associates approached him with a request to boost the allocation of seasonal guest worker visas, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Bernd Lembcke, who retired as Mar-a-Lago’s manager after serving three decades at Trump’s properties, and Peter Petrina, a longtime member of the club, pressed the president in January on the hospitality industry’s urgent need for additional workers before the peak winter and spring tourism season arrived. Adrian Tudor, who manages the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, helped arrange the meeting.
This conversation took place after the administration had declared late last year its intention to reduce seasonal worker positions, designated H-2B visas, to roughly 30,000 below the approximately 65,000 from the previous year. Just weeks following the January meeting, the administration silently reversed its position and released the full number of visas permitted by law.
Trump’s various enterprises have relied on the H-2B program for years to employ temporary foreign workers at properties throughout the country, Mar-a-Lago included.
The January gathering represented the culmination of a vigorous lobbying push by industry executives and congressional allies, including Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, a Trump backer whose district on Maryland’s eastern shore is deeply dependent on these visas for seasonal crab harvesting.
“I think they convinced the president that this was worthwhile, and that, in fact, going up to the amount that had been issued in the past years, which brought up to about 65,000 additional visas, was the right thing to do,” Harris told the WSJ.
Petrina serves as head of the Seasonal Employment Alliance, which works to secure the highest possible number of H-2B visas each year. The program is widely utilized by landscaping companies, fishing operations, and tourist destinations that cannot find sufficient American workers willing or able to accept jobs lasting only a few months.
The White House justified the decision to expand the visa allocation.
“The Trump Administration’s number one priority is protecting American jobs and wages, while adequately responding to the demands of President Trump’s rapidly growing economy,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said.
The visa program persists as a recurring point of conflict between Trump’s anti-immigration supporters, who argue Americans would fill these positions if employers offered better pay, and Republicans with stronger business ties. Trump’s leading immigration adviser Stephen Miller harbors reservations about the program, whereas Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer views it more favorably, according to the Wall Street Journal.
