President Trump’s sons paid an illegal immigrant, who worked as a greenskeeper at one of the family’s golf clubs, to take care of their private shooting range in upstate New York.
Juan Quintero, 42, told the Washington Post that he had been employed at the Trump National Golf Club Hudson Valley in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., for almost two decades. He was offered a job taking care of a private hunting retreat owned by Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and at least three partners in 2016.
He lost both of those jobs when the president’s businesses purged undocumented workers amid reports that the company had benefited from illegal labor, despite the president denouncing such practices.
[Previous coverage: Trump’s National Golf Club in Bedminster hired undocumented immigrants]
Quintero said he now fears he’ll be deported and separated from his wife and their four U.S.-born sons.
Quintero said he showed the golf course’s previous owners a fake green card when he was hired. When the future president bought the property in 2009, he used the same fraudulent documents to continue working there. No one asked him about his legal status when he was hired to work at the hunting retreat, he said.
He said he took pride in his work for the Trumps and was proud to work for the president’s sons. However, he chose to speak out because he was hurt by the president’s comments on immigrants.
“I want them to recognize the good that we do,” Quintero said. “Eighteen years of working [at the golf club] should shed a light that we are not the people that he says we are: bad, rapist, drug dealers, the worst that they say that we are.”
In January, Quintero said he met with human resources at the golf club and was told that he would need to submit valid documentation. Quintero said he did not return to work after the request, assuming he had lost his job at both properties.
Eric Trump has called the firings of undocumented workers “truly heartbreaking.”
“Our employees are like family, but when presented with fake documents, an employer has little choice,” he said. “This situation is not unique to Trump Organization — it is one that all companies face. It demonstrates that our immigration system is severely broken and needs to be fixed immediately.”
