Foreign workers headed back to the beach

It was the summer of 2015 when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump published an immigration policy outlined on his website, calling for the termination of the J-1 visa jobs program.

The visas allow foreign college students from around the world to work usually low-wage, seasonal jobs in the United States, as they have done for years at Delaware's beaches and Maryland resort towns.

But that wasn't how Trump saw it. His policy statement called for scrapping the cultural exchange program as part of a proposed jobs program for inner-city youth.

"The J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth will be terminated and replaced with a resume bank for inner-city youth provided to all corporate subscribers to the J-1 visa program," Trump wrote.

While his J-1 position was not as central to his campaign as, say, building a wall at the U.S./Mexico border or banning Muslims from traveling into the country, if enacted, it would reshape the employment landscape, especially at places like Rehoboth Beach.

So far, Trump has taken no action against the program, which allowed 258,012 J-1 exchange visitors into the United States last July, according to statistics from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Even though his stance caused concern among both businesses and potential workers -- especially when combined with headline-making positions on immigration and a possible travel ban -- it has had no effect on student demand, according to local businesses and those who organize local foreign worker programs.

"We have a huge number of requests," says Anne Marie Conestabile, program director for Owings Mills, Maryland-based United Work and Travel, an agency that will pair about 1,200 workers with businesses in Ocean City, Rehoboth Beach, Bethany Beach and more. "We can get them jobs because these jobs are easy to come by these days. Americans don't want to do the jobs that our young J-1 people can do."

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She doesn't believe Trump's campaign talk of replacing the program with a resume bank would work. Earlier this month, 12,000 Ocean City summer jobs were up for grabs for American workers at the city's annual job fair held at the Roland E. Powell Convention Center Convention Center. She says fewer than 400 were filled.

"Good luck to Mr. Trump if he can find inner-city or any American students who will take the jobs," Conestabile adds.

Lisa Wheeler, head of human resources for SoDel Concepts, the restaurant group that operates Fish On, Papa Grande's, Matt's Fish Camp and 7 other eateries at Delaware's beaches, says about 70 J-1 visa holders will be working for them this summer.

It's about double than last year since SoDel is preparing to open its 11th restaurant -- Bluecoast Seafood Grill near Rehoboth Beach -- and also recently added The Clubhouse at Baywood in Long Neck to their portfolio.

SoDel's full- and part-time staff will jump from about 550 people from this past winter to more than 1,000 this summer. With diners jamming restaurants day and night all summer long, their positions are lucrative enough to draw a large number of local high school and university students who come to work there year after year. They will make up the remainder of SoDel's seasonal workforce.

Even so, the J-1 program is a lifeline in a time of need for the restaurant group. If it stopped and all the business across the area lost those foreign students at once, the result would be worse than trying to drive from Lewes to Rehoboth Beach via Del. 1 on a Fourth of July weekend.

"It's huge having them. We rely on them a lot in every one of our establishments," she says. "If they weren't here, it would make it very difficult to fill all those positions."

Agencies such as United Work and Travel are designated by the U.S. Department of State to be a sponsor for J-1 visa applicants. They set up partnerships with people who have agencies in other parts of the world that recruit students for the program.

All workers in the cultural exchange program have to be English-speaking, full-time university students who meet a minimum GPA requirement. While here, they split time between working and taking trips to experience the area as part of the cultural experience, like a planned summertime trip to Virginia's Wallops Island for United Work and Travel's students.

And in the case of United Work and Travel, their staff actually travels overseas to the home countries of applicants to meet the students and their families. They are then matched to the available jobs and housing is obtained for them.

The biggest problem with the program in Ocean City these days has nothing to do with Trump's campaign threat to cut it -- it's that there is less affordable housing in the area to service the influx of workers, says Conestabile, who started her work in the field 16 years ago as a volunteer coordinator of an Ocean City-based international student outreach program.

"We could bring even more workers, but we just don't have enough places for them to stay," she says.

Thirty miles north in Rehoboth Beach, Nick Caggiano Jr., vice president of Nicola Pizza, is preparing for his staff to nearly double, going from 55 full- and part-timers to 95 workers during the summer. That's when his pair of pizzerias is swarmed with tourists craving pizza and trademark Nic-o-Bolis.

He says the J-1 program is vital for some businesses like his operating during the peak vacation season. If it came to an end, he says, it's hard to underestimate the amount of scrambling that would go on among business owners at the beach.

"There would be a lot of places that wouldn't have the help to stay open as many hours," he says. "It would make it a lot harder. And there are so many places to work now.

"I used to joke and say are 500 restaurants in our area and now I exaggerate and say 5,000. It's crazy," Caggiano adds. "I used to have to turn down help. Now I hire just about anybody who comes in the door if I can get my hands on them."

Contact Ryan Cormier of The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier), Twitter (@ryancormier) and Instagram (@ryancormier).