July 6, 2019

Trump Breaks His Silence About Undocumented Immigrants Working at his Properties

“I don’t know because I don’t run it.”

Shealah Craighead via ZUMA

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News outlets have reported over the past several months that undocumented immigrants, a group that since he began his presidential campaign President Trump has aggressively maligned, disparaged, and wanted out of the country, work in a number of Trump’s properties. 

The President hasn’t spoken on the matter for months, but recently more stories appeared detailing how his properties have hired undocumented workers. On Friday, he was asked by The New York Times if the very people he has vowed to keep out of the country still work on his golf courses. “I don’t know because I don’t run it,” he replied. 

“But I would say this,” he added. “Probably every club in the United States has that because it seems to be, from what I understand, a way that people did business.”

The Times reported in December that several undocumented immigrants were employed at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, NJ. The organization also reportedly hired undocumented immigrants to work in hotel and resort properties in Philadelphia, Westchester County, NY, and Jupiter, Florida.

Following the revelations, the Trump Organization reportedly fired dozens of undocumented works on staff and said it would begin using “E-Verify,” a program in that checks Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security records to ensure that new hires are legally allowed to work in the US.

This is not the first time the issue has been raised. Last year, Vox found that only one in 144 jobs went to American workers at three of Trump’s properties amid his “Buy American, Hire American” push. Mother Jones reported:

Thanks to Vox, we now know just how seriously President Trump’s businesses are taking his policy of “America First.” Three Trump businesses posted 144 openings for seasonal jobs from 2016 to 2017, but just one of those jobs went to an American worker, according to a Vox analysis of US Department of Labor data. These three businesses, which includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, hired the foreign workers through the H-2B visa, a temporary visa for seasonal, non-agricultural work. Trump businesses have used the program since at least 2013, according to Vox.

On Friday, Sandra Diaz, a previously undocumented immigrant who worked as a housekeeper at Trump’s Bedminster club from 2010 and 2013 told the New York Daily News  that the Trump organization still has undocumented workers on staff. 

“He’s still lying,” Diaz said, “as always.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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