Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort is 'quietly' purging its undocumented employees

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

published 9 April 2019

The Trump Organization has been known to hire undocumented workers at its many resorts and hotels. As The New York Times reports, this includes President Trump's "Winter White House," the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, where most of the undocumented workers are from Central American countries and serve as groundskeepers and maintenance workers on the club's golf courses.

But, the Times notes, as the White House ramps up efforts to curb immigration into the U.S., the resort is undergoing a "quiet effort to eliminate" its undocumented workforce. Several of these workers said they had worked at the resort and other golf courses for multiple years and were once employed directly by the Trump properties. However, the Trump Organization recently started transferring those work crews to a staffing company in West Palm Beach, which has been subsequently firing them.

The Times reports that in late February, Jeff Payer, the superintendent of Trump's favorite golf course, Jupiter, called seven maintenance workers who said they did not have legal immigration papers into his office. Payer reportedly told them they were being transferred to Barnett Management, but that they would keep their jobs. Yet by early March, a Barnett representative told the employees that only those with the proper paperwork could stay.