Inside Lobbying Efforts To Make The Mar-a-lago Foreign Worker Visa A Staple Of Maga

As President Donald Trump fends off an intraparty fight over visas, a trade group with Mar-a-Lago ties is pushing for seasonal worker visas to be expanded — and hoping to slip under the radar of MAGA ire over immigrants.

The Seasonal Employment Alliance, which represents agricultural and resort interests among others, has for some time pushed to raise the nation’s cap on a kind of seasonal work visa called H-2B. And now, it's banking on Trump’s own extensive use of the visas, along with a few key hires, to help its case.

The organization, which plays up its ties to Trump and hosts its annual fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, promises “persistent grassroots advocacy” on its website. And it notes that Trump properties are prodigious users of these types of visas.

In fact, recent data from the Department of Labor showed that the Trump Organization requested 184 foreign worker visas through the so-called H-2B program for its various properties, a record number for the organization.

The group’s visa push is the latest in the tug-of-war between business interests that need foreign labor and immigration hard-liners who say foreigners are taking American jobs — with Trump straddling an uncomfortable middle.

SEA spokesperson Gray Delany said in an interview that the group has met with officials at the Department of Homeland Security, the White House’s legislative team, and even made an effort to talk to Eric Trump, the president’s son, and other Trump Org members.

But their real ace in the hole, Delany suggested, is that they believe the Trump administration supports the visa program — and that, at least for now, these temporary worker visas haven’t angered immigration hawks who have been agitating for fewer immigrant visas overall.

“I feel like we're in a very good position with the administration. We've been told this is the one program they actually support,” he said. “We work very hard to differentiate ourselves from H-1B and some of these other visa programs,” adding that SEA is trying to frame the seasonal visas their members need as a “workforce visa program” and not an “immigration program.”

While H-2B visas are for seasonal non-agricultural migrant workers who don’t require housing, H-1B visas allow those with special expertise to work in the U.S. Both are part of the web of visas that make up the U.S. immigration system, but for H-2B visas, employees have to prove they are short on domestic labor before applying for migrant workers.

In addition, SEA has installed Peter Petrina, who files H-2B visa paperwork for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, atop its board of directors. And it has hired Trump ally Caroline Wren to help make inroads in Trump's network.

While Trump hasn’t mentioned H-2B visas by name, he’s spoken in favor of seasonal migrants working at hotels and restaurants. In April, the president floated the possibility of allowing unauthorized migrants working on farms and hotels to come back legally.

“We have to take care of our farmers, the hotels and, you know, the various places where they tend to, where they tend to need people,” Trump told reporters at the time.

The White House wouldn’t clarify whether Trump supports H-2B visas.

“Outside organizations do not speak on behalf of the President,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement.

But the group’s mission runs counter to the hard-line immigration stance that many hard-right conservatives have taken.

Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for a second Trump administration, called for phasing out the H-2B program.

The tension between immigration hawks and the businesses that rely on foreign workers threatens the fragile MAGA coalition that helped Republicans sweep into power in 2024, and helps explain why the administration often seems to struggle to communicate its position.

It was most recently evident in Trump’s interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who questioned why any jobs needed to be filled by non-American workers. And it was equally evident this summer when Trump paused immigration raids on farms after agricultural industry representatives complained that migrant farmworkers were crucial.

Delany acknowledged that the group is concerned that immigration hard-liners such as deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller could focus on the “political ramifications” of a program that hires foreign instead of domestic labor.

Miller was not made available for comment.

But it’s clear that SEA, which charges dues between $10 to $10,000 a year and counts the Texas Shrimp Association and the American Horse Council among its members, considers Trump an ally. It even goes so far as to state on its website that Trump is a “H-2B program user and personally supports the program. While there are officials in Trump world who oppose H-2B, we are working to effectively position ourselves to ensure the support of the administration.”

That includes, the website states, adding Petrina to its ranks, hiring Wren, and hosting fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago.

The next SEA Mar-a-Lago event, slated for March 2026, explicitly states that the fundraiser is scheduled on the weekend, in hopes that Trump will make an appearance at his resort.

The number of new H-2B visas that can be issued annually is capped at 66,000, usually divided into two tranches. In spring, the Trump administration expanded the cap after the initial tranche of 33,000 were issued. The Biden administration also issued supplemental visas on top of the cap, making the number 130,716 until the end of fiscal year 2025, when the Trump administration will have to decide whether to continue with increases.

Delany argued that the Trump administration has the authority to release more H-2B visas, which would help get more foreign workers into places like ski resorts and Alaskan seafood, and Louisiana crawfish processors.