Trump golf course housekeeper is undocumented immigrant: NYT

A woman who has worked for years as a maid at President Trump’s New Jersey golf club is an undocumented immigrant, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The news outlet profiled Victorina Morales, who reportedly crossed the border illegally in 1999 and was hired at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., in 2013. She told the news outlet she used “phony” immigration papers to secure employment. 

The Times reported that Morales has “made Trump’s bed, cleaned his toilet and dusted his crystal golf trophies” during her time working at Bedminster. 

{mosads}Trump has visited his Bedminster golf club on numerous occasions since taking office. The property has hosted Trump Cabinet officials and the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open.

Morales told the newspaper that two Bedminster supervisors were aware of her immigration status and helped her to keep her job. There is no indication that Trump or executives at the Trump Organization, which owns the property, knew of her status.

The Trump Organization said in a statement released to The Hill that “if an employee submitted false documentation in an attempt to circumvent the law, they will be terminated immediately.”

The statement did not directly comment on Morales’s case.

The revelation comes as the Trump administration cracks down on illegal immigration, one of the hallmarks of the president’s agenda. Trump himself has repeatedly used vitriolic rhetoric to describe immigrants.

He launched his presidential campaign in 2015 by describing some Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and other criminals and has more recently described a group of Central American migrants seeking asylum as “invaders” and “thugs.” Most of those migrants hail from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

In response to the approaching caravan, Trump has directed troops be deployed to the border and has signed a proclamation barring some immigrants from declaring asylum. The latter order has been challenged in court.

The Times reported that Morales and another undocumented woman who previously worked at the golf club approached the newspaper with their story. Morales acknowledged she could be fired or deported by coming forward. 

She told the Times that she’s been bothered by Trump’s rhetoric and that she’s been subject to verbal abuse by a supervisor, as well.

“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 newspaper. “We sweat it out to attend to his every need and have to put up with his humiliation.”