As Trump wasted everyone's time demanding funding for a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border, employees at his Westchester golf club were being fired en masse for being undocumented immigrants.
In a report published by The Washington Post, approximately a dozen employees of Trump National Golf Club were brought in one-by-one to speak with a human resources representative and were fired from their jobs. In the article, the employees are described as being longtime members of the golf club's staff, having won employee of the month awards and having a set of keys to Eric Trump's vacation home.
The terminations took place on Jan. 18, amid the government shutdown that dragged on for 35 days. According to the workers' and their attorney, they were fired because they are undocumented.
During the series of terminations on Jan. 18, employees were informed that the company had audited their immigration paperwork, documentation they had provided years earlier. After it was discovered that their paperwork was falsified, the representative said, “Unfortunately, this means the club must end its employment relationship with you today.”
Gabriel Sedano, one of the employees who was fired, said, "I started to cry." The club had employed Sedano since 2005. “I told them they needed to consider us. I had worked almost 15 years for them in this club, and I’d given the best of myself to this job,” he continued. “I’d never done anything wrong, only work and work. They said they didn’t have any comments to make.”
Eric Trump emailed a statement to the Post, in which he attempts to undo his father's blatant display of hypocrisy. "We are making a broad effort to identify any employee who has given false and fraudulent documents to unlawfully gain employment. Where identified, any individual will be terminated immediately," he wrote.
Last year The New York Times published a similar report which spotlighted undocumented employees of Trump's club in Bedminster, New Jersey. "The firings show Trump’s business was relying on undocumented workers even as the president demanded a border wall to keep out such immigrants," The Post explains.
Following the Times report in December, immigration lawyer Anibal Romero explained that his clients were repeatedly abused and threatened while working with Trump and his immediate family in Bedminster. “While working at Donald Trump’s estate in Bedminster and interacting with the President and his immediate family, my clients and others were repeatedly subjected to abuse, called racial epithets and threatened with deportation,” Romero said in a statement.
Romero explained that the manner in which female employees were treated warrants action from law enforcement. "This toxic environment was designed to intimidate these women, leaving them fearful for their safety and the safety of their families," he stated.
Donald Trump and his organization have yet to respond to the Post's report.
