The Trump Organization, the business conglomerate owned by President Donald Trump, significantly increased the number of foreign workers hired during fiscal year 2025, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) records.
Official documents confirm that at least 184 migrant employees were incorporated into their properties, mainly under the H-2B temporary visa program, despite the anti-immigrant discourse that has characterized the federal government.
Trump Organization increased number of foreign employees
🔴 The Trump organization has requested a record number of visas for foreign workers in 2025.https://t.co/BB9dulzmME
– Telemundo News (@TelemundoNews) November 13, 2025
According to reports, most of these contracts correspond to the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, where the president usually spends weekends, as well as to a golf club he owns.
Positions included waiters, gardeners, cooks, cleaners and maintenance personnel, jobs typically filled by foreign workers due to the low availability of local labor in those sectors.
The 184 permits approved in 2025 represent a considerable increase over the 121 contracts made in 2021, the last year of Trump’s first term, according to Forbes magazine.
In total, during his two presidential terms, the tycoon’s companies have requested more than 500 temporary work permits for foreigners, mainly from Latin American and Caribbean countries.
President’s companies depend on foreign workers
While the president has promoted policies that restrict labor immigration and prioritize the hiring of Americans, his own companies have continued to rely on foreign workers to maintain operations.
The contrast is especially stark following the government’s decision last September to raise the cost of the H-1B visa to $100,000, a measure that limits the entry of highly skilled employees – such as engineers, analysts or programmers – to U.S. technology and manufacturing companies.
Immigration and labor economics experts explain that this type of hiring, although legal, is evidence of a structural reality: the dependence of Florida’s tourism and hospitality sector on migrant labor.
“These are hard, low-paying jobs with irregular hours that many citizens simply don’t want to do,” said a former Labor Department official consulted by EFE.
During his first term (2017-2021), Trump had already signed an executive order known as “Buy American, Hire American,” which sought to strengthen domestic industry and increase control over labor visas.
However, analysts argue that his personal business dealings were never fully aligned with that policy.
The revelation of this data has reignited the debate on the consistency between the President’s political discourse and business practices, especially now that his administration is pushing for an unprecedented immigration offensive.
In the words of a Brookings Institute scholar, “it is a classic example of how political discourse on immigration rarely matches U.S. economic reality.”
With housing, food and labor prices on the rise, experts anticipate that demand for foreign workers will continue to grow, even in companies that publicly oppose their arrival.
For many, the case of the Trump Organization is not an exception, but a reflection of the contrast between political rhetoric and the real needs of the U.S. labor market.
