A report in a prominent U.S. newspaper says there are a number of undocumented immigrants working at U.S. President Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The account in The New York Times is mostly based on interviews with two housekeepers who have worked at the golf club. One no longer works there, while the other was not expecting to return to her job once the newspaper published the story.
The Times reported Thursday that the housekeepers are speaking up because they are disturbed by the president’s persistent and demeaning comments about immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
'Why wouldn't he figure it out?'
Victorina Morales, who is a Guatemala national, told the newspaper: “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 added, “We sweat it out to attend to his every need and have to put up with his humiliation.”
Sandra Diaz, a Costa Rica native and now a legal U.S. resident, who once worked at the New Jersey club, said there were “many people without papers.” According to The Times, Diaz “witnessed several people being hired whom she knew to be undocumented.”
The newspaper account says a golf club employee drives other employees to their jobs at the club “because it is known that they cannot legally obtain driver’s licenses” without the proper immigration documents.
The New York Times says there is no evidence the president or the Trump Organization knew about the immigration status of their workers.
However, the article ends with Morales saying about Trump: “I ask myself, is it possible that this señor thinks we have papers? He knows we don’t speak English. ... Why wouldn’t he figure it out.”
Illegal and deployed to border
Meanwhile, a report in The Washington Post Thursday said a Chinese national who joined the U.S. military with the understanding that he would be naturalized has been deployed to support Customs and Border Protection agents.
“I am an illegal immigrant,” the soldier told The Post in a telephone interview.
The Post did not reveal the soldier’s name or his exact location because “he fears discipline for speaking to the press” and he is afraid of the Border Protection agents discovering his status.
He had expected to be a U.S. citizen by now, but the Pentagon program through which he enlisted in military, the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI), has been ended and his visa expired while he waited for the naturalization paperwork and formalities to be completed. His enlistment was seen as something “especially valuable” to the military, according to the newspaper, because he speaks Mandarin and several dialects, a skill in “short supply” in the U.S. military.
Immigrants were eligible for MAVNI if they had legal status in the U.S. They were promised a path to citizenship. The Chinese-born solider, however, entered basic training in January in Missouri where, The Post reported, his drill sergeants told him he would not be naturalized there.
He did his advanced training at a base in Texas and there were no accommodations for naturalizations there, either.
Then, he was deployed to support the border agents who are attempting to keep illegal immigrants from entering the country.
He says the paperwork for this naturalization had finally begun, but was paused when he was deployed to support the agents.
