While Donald Trump rails against immigrants and foreign workers taking away American jobs, the Trump Vineyard Estates has filed yet another request for visas for foreign farm workers at its Virginia winery.
The application filed last week asks for H-2 worker visa for 23 laborers at $11.27 an hour from April through October this year.
In December Trump Vineyard Estates also filed an application with the Department of Labor seeking six visas that would allow the company to hire foreign workers for seasonal jobs. That paperwork was submitted just days after Trump leaned on an Indiana company not to ship American jobs to Mexico.
The workers will be employed by the Trump Winery, according to Buzzfeed, which is owned by Donald Trump’s son, Eric. The winery’s website says it is a registered trade name of Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing LLC and is “not owned, managed or affiliated with Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their affiliates.”
But the winery is located on and the visa request was filed by Trump Vineyard Estates LLC, which is listed as part of the real estate portfolio of the Trump Organization, according to its website. When Trump became president he said he would switch management of his companies to his sons but would maintain ownership. Donald Trump revealed in a 2015 campaign financial disclosure filing that Trump Vineyard Estates had earned him $150,000 to $1.1 million, Politico reported at the time.
Trump also boasted at a campaign event last year featuring bottles from the Trump Winery — which was reportedly transferred to Eric in 2012 — that “I own it 100 percent — no mortgage, no debt.”
Trump won approval in December to also hire 77 foreign workers at his Mar-a-Lago resort and Jupiter golf course through the H-2B visa program, according to a review of data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows conducted by Vocativ.
CNN reported last summer that Trump companies have employed at least 1,256 foreign workers — most from Romania and South Africa — in the past 15 years. The companies applied to hire 263 foreign workers even after Trump launched his campaign in which he railed against the loss of U.S. jobs to foreign workers.
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