Undocumented workers fired at third Trump site

Dismissals come after news report on employees

President Donald Trump’s family business has employed workers in the country illegally more broadly than it was previously believed, with multiple workers losing their jobs last month at a Trump golf club in southern New Jersey.

The club in Pine Hill, N.J., known as the Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia, was the third Trump property where unauthorized workers have been fired since the New York Times reported in December that the Trump club in Bedminster, N.Y., for years employed immigrants who were in the country unlawfully.

Don’t come back

The president’s company terminated about a dozen unauthorized workers at the Bedminster property after the article was published, as well as a dozen workers at the Trump National Golf Club Westchester, in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.

People familiar with the terminations at Pine Hill said that about five workers at that property were fired or told not to report to work again, including two seasonal workers who were not scheduled to work until the spring. One of the people familiar with the matter said that many other seasonal workers expected to be told not to return in the coming weeks.

The revelations about the workers has been an embarrassment for the Trump Organization, coming to light as Trump has railed against illegal immigration, blamed unauthorized immigrants for crime and pledged to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep more people from entering the country unlawfully.

The company has said it was duped by employees who used false identification to get their jobs. But some of the workers in Bedminster told the Times they were kept on the payroll despite the fact that management was aware of the false documents.

A spokesperson for the company declined to comment Friday.

The workers at the Pine Hill property said their terminations, which occurred in January, came abruptly.

“Just like that, I got fired,” said Victor Reyes, who is from Mexico and worked in the kitchen alongside the chef.

“The manager called me and asked, ‘Victor, are you legal?’ I said, ‘No, I am not legal.’ It surprised me because I knew he knew that I was illegal. I have worked for him 16 years and then he asks me,” said Reyes.

Reyes had worked up from a dishwasher to grilling steaks and preparing a la carte orders, he said.

The firings at the Pine Hill golf club were the result of a broader audit that the Trump Organization is conducting at its properties across the country, according to people briefed on the review. Although the organization has conducted similar reviews in prior years, this is the largest effort yet to ensure the company’s employees are permitted to work in the country.

The review has presented yet another legal and public relations headache for company executives who are trying to contain the fallout from the revelations. It comes as the Trump Organization is facing wider scrutiny from congressional Democrats examining the company’s business practices.

Only now using E-Verify

At this point in the review, the issues appear to have been largely concentrated in the Bedminster and Westchester golf clubs, the people said, though the discovery of unauthorized workers at the southern New Jersey property show that the matter is more widespread than initially believed. The terminations at the Westchester club were first reported by the Washington Post.

The Trump Organization announced Tuesday that it was using a system — known as E-Verify — to prevent workers without legal status from getting jobs at its properties. For the last several years, the company had used that system in many of its hotel properties, though it did not adopt it at most of the golf courses.

“I must say, for me personally, this whole thing is truly heartbreaking,” Eric Trump, an executive vice president with the Trump Organization, said in a statement Tuesday. “Our employees are like family, but when presented with fake documents, an employer has little choice.”