Undocumented migrants have been working for US President Donald Trump's luxury golf club in the state of New Jersey, despite his hard stance against illegal immigration and insistence on jobs for Americans, according to report in US media.
Victorina Morales, 45, from Guatemala, has been a housekeeper at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster since 2013, after being hired with false documents, The New York Times reported Thursday.
She and former employee Sandra Diaz, 46, who is now a legal resident, told the newspaper there were other undocumented workers at the golf club, and that supervisors took steps to help employess evade detection and keep their jobs.
Trump has taken a tough stance on immigration since taking office in 2016. He even boasted during his presidential campaign that not a single illegal immigrant worked for his organization.
The Times said there was no evidence that Trump or executives from his family's Trump Organization company knew about their immigration status.
“We have tens of thousands of employees across our properties and have very strict hiring practices,” said a Trump Organization spokesperson in a statement sent to AFP.
“If any employee submitted false documentation in an attempt to circumvent the law, they will be terminated immediately.”
Morales, who earns $13 an hour, said employees had become increasingly upset by Trump's negative rhetoric about Hispanic immigrants and said a supervisor scolded them as “stupid illegal immigrants.”
“We are tired of the abuse, the insults, the way he talks about us when he knows that we are here helping him make money,” she told the Times.
“We sweat it out to attend to his every need and have to put up with his humiliation.”
Soon after Trump launched his presidential election campaign, several illegal workers had shifts axed. “A lot of people just left,” Morales said.
The newspaper reported that she has applied for protection under asylum laws and is exploring a lawsuit claiming workplace abuse and discrimination.
The US civilian workforce includes 7.8 million unauthorized immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center.
The US president has vowed to stop the flow of Central American migrants and asylum seekers headed to the US by building a wall along the southern US border with Mexico.