The Florida-based Mar-a-Lago resort, owned by the Trump family, requested the Department of Labor to allow it to hire 70 Foreign Workers. The request, ironically, was filed as the country celebrates “Made in America Week” with President Donald Trump leading the initiative.

Trump declared the week “Made in America Week” to promote one of his campaign promises to buy American, hire American in an effort to celebrate U.S. manufacturing. The initiative, however, faltered because Trump and daughter Ivanka -- whose companies manufacture goods in Asia where labor is cheap -- refused to commit to having their products made in the U.S.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer even blamed the supply chains in the country why Ivanka’s company manufactures in China and other nearby countries.

Seasonal visas

Mar-a-Lago sought seasonal visas for 20 cooks, 35 waiters, and 15 maids, The New York Daily News reported. Another Trump business in the same state, the Trump National Golf Club, also asked permission from the department to use the H-2B visa program to bring into the country more foreign waiters and waitresses, but it filed the request in April. Such kinds of visas are granted when the employer certified that there are not enough qualified American workers for the vacant jobs.

Moreover, the hiring of foreign workers must not affect the salaries and working conditions adversely of American employees in a similar type of jobs, the U.S, Citizenship and Immigration Services said.

The request of Mar-a-Lago is to grant the 70 foreign workers H-2B visas through May 2018.

Unqualified American workers

The New York Times, in February, reported that since 2010, out of the almost 300 U.S. residents who have applied for jobs at Trump’s resort – where he had been entertaining foreign dignitaries since he became president – only 17 were employed.

Trump explained that those who were rejected were unqualified for the vacant posts.

If the department will approve the request of Mar-a-Lago and will grant H-2B visas to the 70 foreign workers, the resort will pay the cooks $13.34 per hour, the servers $11.88 per hour, and the housekeepers $10.30 per hour, BuzzFeed reported.

Prior to the resort’s request filed this week, the business owned by Trump have requested permission to employ 370 foreign guest workers under the H-2B visa and a similar H-2A visa.

It reflects a lot of what is happening in the national political scene where grand policies are made and pushed, but members of the Trump family do not follow the rules such as disclosure of foreign contacts.