Donald Trump changed course on a key policy of his administration after being influenced by business pals at one of his Florida golf clubs.
Trump, 79, met with Mar-a-Lago staffers Bernd Lembcke and Peter Petrina in January, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal. The men on Trump’s payroll told the president that the hospitality industry needed to hire more seasonal workers ahead of peak tourism periods in winter and spring.
On the final day of last year, the government signaled it would release only 35,000 additional H-2B visas for 2026, which was nearly half the number made available over the previous three years.
The H-2B visa allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers for temporary jobs, usually in areas such as hospitality, construction or tourism.
Two weeks after that meeting in January, Trump’s administration changed direction and released the maximum number of additional H-2B visas, which is 64,716.
Trump has used the H-2B visa program to hire roles such as cooks, housekeepers and waiters at his properties, including his private resort Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
“Fundamentally, it comes down to the fact that the president himself is a program user. Mar-a-Lago uses H-2Bs,” Tom Bortnyk, general counsel for másLabor, the nation’s largest provider of H-2A and H-2B services, told Bloomberg Law in February, after the decision was reversed.
“They’re not strangers to the H-2B programs.”
The Journal report also claimed that Trump had been lobbied by Republican congressman Andy Harris to reverse the cut to extra H-2B visas. Harris’ voters in Maryland rely heavily on seasonal workers to pick crabs on the Eastern Shore.
Trump “took the lobbying campaign,” which also included input from industry leaders, seriously, sources told the publication. It resulted in the president instructing his advisers to restore the number of additional temporary visas.
The program is popular with industries that struggle to find enough Americans prepared to work for only a few months a year, such as landscaping, forestry, amusement, recreation, seafood processing, and fisheries.
Seasonal industry lobbyists also leaned on their allies in Congress to reverse the decision on the additional H-2B visas this year ahead of looming key tourism events, including the FIFA World Cup finals and America’s 250th anniversary celebrations.
“We were really doing everything we could to explain to the administration that 35,000—while we appreciated it—we needed the full 64,716,” Andrew Bray, vice president of government relations at the National Association of Landscape Professionals, told Bloomberg Law in February after the decision was reversed.
The publication also cited an industry lobbyist who said Trump officials were “testing the waters” with anti-immigration groups by releasing more seasonal visas.
Those groups have traditionally opposed the visas, believing they take jobs from American workers. The additional visas also seem at odds with Trump’s policy of mass deportation.
Stephen Miller, the White House’s deputy chief of staff for policy and a vocal fan of ICE raids, is “skeptical” of the program and had attempted to limit the number of additional visas handed out during Trump’s first term as president, the Journal reported.
The White House said the additional release of H-2B visas was actually a by-product of their ICE raids, as immigrants had their work authorization removed when their temporary legal status was revoked.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said, “This decision followed the termination and expiration of Employment Authorization Documents for more than 1.3 million illegal aliens, who had been receiving parole or TPS under the Biden administration.”
“The Trump administration’s number one priority is protecting American jobs and wages, while adequately responding to the demands of President Trump’s rapidly growing economy,” Rogers added. “These reforms to the H-2B guest worker program reinforce President Trump’s historic investments in our country, support preparations for the FIFA World Cup 2026, and provide Americans with greater employment opportunities.”
