Guest Editorial: H-2B visa program expansion sensible.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort notified federal authorities that it wants to hire 70 temporary guest workers under the H-2B visa program, allowing the chosen cooks, housekeepers and servers to enter the country and work there from Oct. 1 to May. Some are likely to take issue with that given President Trump’s strongly nativist “America First” rhetoric denouncing porous immigration policies and trade practices that are “shipping jobs overseas.” That the Mar-a-Lago application was made during the White House’s “Made in America Week” only underscores a perception of a president who doesn’t practice the protectionist policies he touts.

There’s only one problem with that line of attack. As controversial as the H-2B visa program may be, Mar-a-Lago’s application would appear to fit the bill of exactly what the temporary worker program is supposed to be about — filling jobs that don’t require highly-skilled workers and would likely otherwise go unfilled. With the U.S. unemployment rate at 4.3 percent as of May, it’s not unreasonable to assume that a lot of companies are having trouble finding applicants for physically challenging jobs in restaurants, hotels, theme parks and elsewhere in the hospitality industry. What’s the most common position filled with an H-2B? Landscaping. Apparently, finding people willing to pull weeds and dig holes in South Florida is as difficult as it sounds.

Last week, the Trump administration also announced that the H-2B program would be enlarged by 15,000 positions, but it could have expanded the program by 55,000 more under authority granted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security by Congress. And even with the expansion, the entire program represents a tiny fraction of the total U.S. work force, with H-2B constituting less than one-tenth of 1 percent of U.S. employment. Critics, including many labor unions, charge that H-2B hurts native workers by giving employers a cheaper option than raising pay or improving working conditions. But the program is so tiny and employers have to jump through so many hoops — they have to prove that they can’t find U.S. workers to fill the jobs, and the U.S. Department of Labor has to certify that domestic workers aren’t being undercut — that it’s unlikely to have much negative effect in the broader economy . ...

Don’t get us wrong. President Trump’s diatribes against undocumented immigrants have been shameful, and his claims about trade practices have been misleading and self-serving. And certainly, holding a stake in Mar-a-Lago (and subsequently visiting and promoting the resort as president) represents a poor decision that has cost him precious credibility; Mr. Trump should have placed his holdings in a blind trust before inauguration day. That said, a modest expansion of the H-2B program isn’t at odds with promoting American-made products, nor is it a failure to stick up for American workers. It’s mostly a sensible idea.