The H-2A visa guest worker program enables employers who anticipate a shortage of seasonal labor services to request to bring in foreign workers to do the labor.

Trump Vineyard estates property in Charlottesville is requesting these work visas to hire 29 non-immigrant foreign workers from other countries to perform agricultural work and labor in his winery vineyards.

What about President Trump’s “hire Americans program?” Are there not 29 domestic workers, Americans, who need a job for at least eight or nine months that can be found in Virginia, Maryland or North Carolina to do that seasonal work?

The answer is yes and no!

Yes, 29 people can be found who need a job, but no, because Americans don’t want to do that type of labor.

The number 29 may seem small but across the 11 Southern states, for example, the numbers can be in the thousands.

Case in point: Until about 2011, the state of Alabama was using undocumented immigrants to work their agricultural areas. Then the state passed an anti-immigrant bill, or law, which drove the undocumented workers out of the state. Between the time they left the state and the law was declared unconstitutional, the state couldn’t get locals — white or black people — to labor in the agricultural areas. The business community was happy about the law being declared unconstitutional.

Will President Trump issue an executive order exempting guest worker entry into the country because of the country’s shortage of seasonal workers?

WALT HILL

Petersburg