The Trump Organization is now using E-Verify to confirm the eligibility of its employees to work in the U.S., which has resulted in more firings of undocumented workers. The system allows employers to compare the personal information of new and returning employees to records held by the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, making it more difficult for these workers to get hired.
The Washington Post reports that all of President Donald Trump’s golf courses, which amounts to 12 in total, are enrolled in the program — a significant shift from just three of the courses back in December. The move comes after criticisms of the Trump Organization’s use of undocumented immigrants at its golf courses and accusations that it helped provide these immigrants with fake social security cards and green cards, as The Inquisitr reported.
Back when the Trump Organization first took steps toward relying on E-Verify, The New York Times reported that Eric Trump, the president’s second child with ex-wife Ivana, said that the organization is “actively engaged in uniforming this process across our properties and will institute E-Verify at any property not currently utilizing this system.”
“As a company we take this obligation very seriously and when faced with a situation in which an employee has presented false and fraudulent documentation, we will take appropriate action.”
The move toward E-Verify use at Trump’s golf clubs is an attempt to provide higher salaries for manual labor jobs and weaken the incentive for illegal workers, with an end goal of providing more room for college-age Americans.
NEW: @realdonaldtrump ‘s company has now embraced E-Verify at all its golf courses. The result: even more of Trump’s longtime workers have been fired for being undocumented. We talked to 2 of them in NJ. https://t.co/1byimG0JjV
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) May 24, 2019
Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies which pushes for reduced immigration, supports the Trump Organization’s approach to immigration but believes that action was late in coming.
“You’d think, in 2015, they’d say, ‘Let’s go take a look at this and see what our own situation is.’ But better late than never.”
When questioned about the priority of immigration by the Trump Organization’s higher-ups, a former manager at Colts Neck said that it was never on the same level as gender pay disparities and background checks for employees that dealt with young golfers.
“E-Verify was not big. There was not a specific request [to implement it], because I think there was an additional expense.”
Trump’s own golfing has been the focus of public criticism. As The Inquisitr reported, his frequent outings have cost taxpayers $102 million to date — three times what Barack Obama’s were at the same point in his presidency. The price is reportedly so high due to Trump’s golf trips to his overseas properties, including his Turnberry course in Scotland, the total of which racked up transportation costs of $3 million for U.S. taxpayers.
