Donald Trump Employed Illegal Immigrants As Personal Housekeepers

A large part of President Donald Trump’s appeal to conservative voters is based on his hardline stance on immigration. Building the wall and securing the border have been top priorities for this administration, priorities often accented with rants about the dangers of migrant caravans and speeches attacking illegal immigrants for taking American jobs.

But while the president may hold these agendas up before the public, his personal life, which is largely dominated by his various private resorts and golf clubs, the president takes a different tone.

A New York Times report detailing the life of Victorina Morales, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, showed that for five years, Morales worked alongside many other undocumented workers for the president at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf course.

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Morales was hired to work Trump’s Bedminster golf course in 2013, where she cleaned after the president and his family at their two story residence on the property.

She was hired with phony documents, her green card and social security number obtained illegally in 1999 when she first crossed the border into California after a six week trip through Mexico.

Morales claims that for many years, she thought President Trump was a good man, as he complimented her work and tipped her handsomely on multiple occasions when he visited the club.

He was a demanding boss, she recalled to the Times, often personally inspecting his employee’s handiwork and making it known when it was not up to his standard.

Sandra Diaz, another undocumented worker who worked on the Bedminster property until 2013, recalled an occasion when Trump visited the property and called her into a building for an inspection.

After running his fingers over frames and walls, examining her work, Diaz told the Times that Trump told her,“You did a really great job,” and handed her a $100 bill.

Diaz has since received her citizenship, and is currently a legal resident of the United States.

But all that changed after the 2016 election, Diaz’s and Morales’ opinions of now President Trump souring with every speech that attacked undocumented workers like themselves as criminals and drug dealers.

Soon after the president took office, the rules around the resort changed, and so did the demeanor of many of its employees.

New rules implemented by the property’s managers required Morales to bring in updated papers proving she was eligible to work in the United States. When she could not provide the papers, Morales told the Times that a manager helped her pay for and get in contact with a local who provided her with new forged documents.

But as the months progressed, and the president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric grew more heated, employees and managers on the Bedminster property began commenting on her and other undocumented employees’ legal status to degrade them, saying things like, “stupid illegal immigrants” and comparing them to dogs.

Morales told the Times that she is certain that the property’s managers and even President Trump know and have known about her immigration status.

“I ask myself, is it possible that this señor thinks we have papers? He knows we don’t speak English,” Morales said. “Why wouldn’t he figure it out?”

Morales and Diaz are currently working with a lawyer to represent them on their immigration matters. They are also exploring a lawsuit under workplace abuse and discrimination.