Trump NJ Golf Club Allegedly Hid Immigrants From Secret Service

Supervisors kept undocumented workers at President Trump's New Jersey golf club off a Secret Service vetting list when Trump visited the club two years ago, according to reports and an attorney representing the workers.

Emma Torres, 43, an immigrant from Ecuador and a kitchen employee at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, told the club that she was an undocumented immigrant while a security check was taking place, according to her attorney Anibal Romero, who represents several undocumented immigrants who worked at the Trump National Golf Club.

The names were then removed from the list that was turned over to the Secret Service, Romero told Patch.

Torres herself also made these claims to The New Tork Times and The Washington Post as the FBI and New Jersey's attorney general are now allegedly probing allegations of harassment and immigration fraud claims at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.

Victorina Morales, 45, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, told The Times that when said she worked as a housekeeper in a different part of the club cleaning Trump’s villa, Secret Service agents gave her a pin to wear every time Trump visited.

“I had to wear the pin to get into the golf club,” Morales said in an interview Thursday, saying her supervisor asked her to sign her name to receive a pin. Morales told The Times that she did not know how to write, so she didn’t sign, adding: “I told them I couldn’t write, so they let me go at that."

Secret Service spokeswoman Catherine Milhoan told The Times that a Secret Service pin bearing the U.S. flag is a novelty item and is not used by the Secret Service as a means of identification, verification or access control. She declined to discuss what kind of pins agents may have provided Morales.

Efforts to obtain comment from the FBI, the Trump Organization and US Citizenship and Immigration Services were not immediately successful.

FBI agents and the state Office of Attorney General have met with Romero, a Newark attorney who told Patch that he provided fraudulent green cards and Social Security numbers to the OAG that management at the club allegedly used to hire his clients, Morales and Sandra Diaz.

Romero also said he reached out to Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s office, which is investigating the 2016 Trump presidential campaign's alleged ties to Russia. Mueller's office apparently referred him to the FBI, and two agents subsequently met with Romero recently at a federal office in Branchburg.

Romero said the FBI told him that it is working with the OAG on the investigation. He said the FBI's interest makes him "feel the institutions work in this country."

Morales, of Bound Brook, and Romero are still awaiting word from the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services on their asylum request from December, he said.

Morales used fake documents to get a job at Trump’s golf club including a "made-up Social Security number that belonged to no one," Romero, told Patch.

Morales left Guatemala in 1999 and illegally entered the United States before heading to Bedminster where she used phony documents to secure a job at the president's golf course, according to the New York Times. She had been working at the golf club and cleaning for President Donald Trump since 2o13.

She claims she is not the only illegal worker at the golf club despite Trump's claims during his presidential campaign boasting that he had used an electronic verification system, E-Verify, to ensure that only those legally entitled to work were hired, according to the New York Times.

Romero, meanwhile, told Patch that the state attorney general initially reached out to him about claims that five of his clients were routinely threatened and called racial slurs while working at the Trump National Golf Club.

Romero said his clients have had their hair pulled, they've been pushed against a wall and they've been called "dogs," among other transgressions.

Romero said his clients have complained to the "highest levels of management." Eventually, they were given a woman whom they later discovered was a nanny for Donald Trump's son, Barron, and who was supposed to look into the situation. Nothing happened, he said.

Trump frequents the golf course on a yearly basis and even spends his summer vacations there.

This past summer, Trump spent an 11-day summer vacation in Bedminster from Thursday, Aug. 2 through Monday, Aug. 13.

Trump had also spent about six weekends at Trump National Golf Club off Lamington Road in Bedminster in 2018. (See related: President Trump May Spend Summer Vacation In Bedminster)

In 2017, the President spent an 18-day summer vacation in Bedminster as well, which local aviators said "devastated" local airports.

(Image via Getty Images / Pool / Pool)

With reporting by Alexis Tarrazi

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