Trump's Business Sought to Bring In Nearly 200 Employees on Visas in 2025
The former president’s family business increased its recruitment of overseas employees on temporary visas this year, even as his government was placing obstacles for other companies wanting to do the same, a report published Thursday stated.
Based on information from the US Department of Labor, the Trump Organization aimed to bring in at least 184 overseas employees in the coming year for short-term roles at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, golf facilities and his Virginia winery.
The quantity of requests for H-2A and H-2B visas for staff including servers, clerks, cleaning staff, culinary employees and agricultural laborers was the record filed by the organization, and increased from over 120 in the previous term, when his presidency ended.
It was also the fifth instance in a decade that Trump had attempted to bring in over a hundred foreign employees for seasonal jobs at Mar-a-Lago, according to available data.
The revelation comes amid a tightening on immigration laws by his administration that has included the introduction of a $100,000 fee on H1-B visas; extra scrutiny of the actions of the millions of people who already hold US visas; and tighter regulations for foreign students and reporters.
In total, the Trump Organization sought to hire over 560 overseas workers over the period Trump has been in the presidency, from 2017 to 2021 and during 2025.
Significantly, the former president was criticized by some in the Republican party this week for remarks defending the need for foreign workers when a company was unable to find people with “specific talents” to fill particular roles.
“You cannot just say a nation is entering, going to spend $10bn to build a facility, and going to take people off an jobless roster who have been unemployed in years, and they’re going to start making their missiles. It doesn’t work that well,” he told a interviewer after she suggested that foreign workers undercut the wages of American employees.
The White House declined a request for response, and the business did not immediately respond to an request for information.
