Donald Trump's Companies Requested and Got Work Visas for Thousands of Immigrants

A new report says that Donald Trump has sought visas for thousands of temporary workers since 2000 even though he has become the frontrunner in the Republican Party presidential candidate contest by attacking immigrants and promising to protect American jobs.

Reuters reports that in just the last month Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida applied for 70 visas for foreign workers because they could be paid lower wages than American workers, even as Trump hit the campaign trail denigrating Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers. The jobs would have been for positions as cooks, waiters, and cleaners.

Since 2000, Trump-affiliated companies have sought 1,100 temporary visas for foreign workers, and most of the requested vias were approved. Nine different Trump owned companies made the requests, for jobs as varied as waitresses, golf course superintendents, banquet managers, and vineyard workers.

While the data doesn't specify the nationality of those the visas were requested for, it is entirely possible that a good portion of the workers were Mexicans because the type of visas Trump companies most requested H-2B, go disproportionately to Mexicans, with Mexicans receiving 80 percent of H-2Bs.

Of the 1,100 aforementioned temporary visas, requested by Trump-owned companies, 850 were H-2B.  A number of government watchdog reports have faulted the H-2B visas for endangering the economic welfare of American workers while also failing to protect the rights of the foreign workers that come to the United States.

Two Trump companies wanted 250 visas for foreign fashion models, despite the fact that as the man behind the Miss America beauty pageant, Trump's businesses had access to thousands of American models.

Trump's campaign and lawyers did not respond to Reuters requests for comments.