Joshua Roberts/Reuters
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has a problem hiring Americans at Mar-a-Lago, his elite Florida beach club. Foreign workers have been the majority of hires for certain posts at the luxurious Palm Beach resort since 2010, The New York Times reported Thursday. The newspaper alleges that nearly 300 U.S. residents have been referred for or applied for jobs as waitstaff, cooks, and housekeepers, but federal records indicate only 17 have been hired. Instead, the club filled those jobs with hundreds of workers from Romania and elsewhere. The real-estate mogul has also reportedly pursued more than 500 visas for foreign workers at Mar-a-Lago in the past six years, according to the Department of Labor. Hundreds of domestic applicants allegedly failed to get those same jobs. Trump claims, though, that U.S. applicants would only be refused if they “weren’t qualified, for some reason.” He has said that “there are very few qualified people during the high season in the area.” Meanwhile, Trump has come under fire in the last year for various anti-immigration comments, largely framing migrants as displacing Americans from the workforce. Trump has said that if he’s elected, he would “greatly strengthen our border, making it impenetrable... I will bring jobs back to the United States.” The GOP frontrunner has also said, however, that he supports legal immigration.