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As @realDonaldTrump heads to El Paso to renew his calls for a border wall, here’s a look at the deeply reported examination by @partlowj @nickmiroff @fahrenthold of a pipeline that provided illegal workers for Trump’s Bedminster golf club for 17 years: wapo.st/2MT5DhF?tid=ss…
The Post spoke to 16 men and women from Costa Rica and other Latin American countries who said they were employed at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, some as far back as 2002.
In one small Costa Rican village, The Post spoke to six former Trump employees. Dario Angulo, who worked seven years on the Bedminster ground crew, said he used his “Trump money,” as he put it, to buy land and some cattle back home. 
Some of the workers came illegally into the United States across the border with the help of smugglers. But other flew here and overstayed tourist visas. One Bedminster worker arrived as a cabin steward on a cruise ship that docked in Miami.
The Trump workers told us their supervisors knew they did not have legal status.
Housekeeper Gilberta Dominguez said her manager filled out her application in 2016 because she didn’t speak English.
“And I said, ‘Listen, we don’t have good papers,’ ” Dominguez, of Oaxaca, Mexico, recalled telling her. “She said, ‘It doesn’t matter; don’t talk about that.’ ”
“And I said, ‘Listen, we don’t have good papers,’ ” Dominguez, of Oaxaca, Mexico, recalled telling her. “She said, ‘It doesn’t matter; don’t talk about that.’ ”
In 2011, Hank Protinsky, then the club’s head of security, was warned by local police that an employee could be using fake papers, according to a police report obtained by The Post through a public records request.
Some of the first Costa Ricans hired to build Trump National Golf Club Bedminster remember it as punishing work. They labored from dawn until late evening, seven days a week, raking and hauling mountains of earth moved by heavy machinery and shaping it into golf holes.
The illegal workers earned about $10 an hour or less as employees of Trump's club, they said.
Around that time, a licensed heavy equipment operator in central New Jersey would have received an average of $51 to $55 per hour in wages and benefits.
Around that time, a licensed heavy equipment operator in central New Jersey would have received an average of $51 to $55 per hour in wages and benefits.
Franklin Mora, who quit after a year on the grounds crew, said that his manager would mock his limited English and spoke harshly to the Hispanic employees.
“They treated us like slaves,” he said.
“They treated us like slaves,” he said.
The Post contacted two dozen current and former managers at Bedminster — including those identified by the workers as their supervisors — and asked if they were aware that the club employed people without legal status. Most either declined to comment or did not respond.
One former groundskeeping manager responded only by sending The Post an animated image of Trump saying, “I have great relationships with the Mexican people.”
“This situation is not unique to Trump Organization — it is one that all companies face,” @EricTrump told The Post last month. “It demonstrates that our immigration system is severely broken and needs to be fixed immediately.”
Read the piece here: washingtonpost.com/politics/my-wh…
And for more information about what we've learned so far about Trump's reliance on illegal workers at his clubs, here's a download from @fahrenthold @partlowj: wapo.st/2FUxb5x?tid=ss…
