Donald Trump vowed to "buy American and hire American,” but like everything coming out of his mouth, it was a bunch of bullshit. The Denver Post reports that Eric Trump’s winery has asked his dad’s government for permission to hire dozens of foreign workers because—get this—U.S.-born workers don’t want the jobs:
Trump Vineyard Estates, better known as Trump Winery, has asked to bring in 29 workers this season through the federal H-2A visa program, The Daily Progress reported.
The Charlottesville-area winery is owned by Eric Trump, whose father has called on businesses to hire Americans.
The H-2A program enables agricultural employers who anticipate a shortage of domestic workers to bring foreign workers to the U.S. to perform agricultural labor or other temporary or seasonal services. To apply, employers say they’ve been unable to find American citizens to fill the jobs. At least three other local vineyards also applied to hire foreign workers.
“It’s difficult to find people,” said Libby Whitley, an attorney who has worked with employers, including Trump Winery.
The attorney said that out of the 13 applications the winery received during their initial call for workers, exactly zero were from U.S.-born workers. “They were all from places like the Philippines, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria,” Whitley said.
The fact of the matter is that native-born Americans just don’t want the backbreaking farm work many foreign laborers, particularly undocumented immigrants, are willing to take. If you eat, you benefit from immigrant labor. In California, even Trump-voting farmers admit that if their undocumented labor force were to be deported, “it would be a total disaster.”
As for Eric Trump, applying for foreign workers as his dad says he’ll bring back jobs seems to be a regular thing:
Trump Vineyard Estates had initially applied for six foreign workers in December. Two months later, the company applied for 23 more.
Donald Trump himself has done the same, bringing in dozens of workers to his Mar-a-Lago resort (not “Winter White House”) last year. Cumulatively, “Trump's Mar-a-Lago property company has applied for more than 500 visas for foreign workers since 2010.” That right there takes some major gall: hiring foreign laborers as you also demonize them for supposedly stealing American jobs in order to win the presidency.
