(CNN) — Approximately a dozen undocumented employees at Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, New York, were fired last week, as lawmakers — including President Donald Trump — were in the middle of a partial government shutdown over funding for a border wall, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.
The Post spoke to the workers and their attorney who said the abrupt firing took place on January 18, despite some of the individuals having worked as staff at the club for several years.
Last year, The New York Times reported that his private club in New Jersey had employed people who managers allegedly knew were in the country illegally.
The two women who spoke to The Times last year said that supervisors at the club took active measures to help them avoid detection and hold on to their jobs, but the paper said there was no evidence that Trump or Trump Organization executives knew of their immigration status.
The Post reported that at Trump National Golf Club, the company told the workers that they found their immigration documents were fake during an audit.
CNN has reached out to the Trump Organization and the White House for comment.
Eric Trump, the President’s son and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said in an emailed statement to The Post: “We are making a broad effort to identify any employee who has given false and fraudulent documents to unlawfully gain employment. Where identified, any individual will be terminated immediately.”
According to The Post, Eric Trump added that it is one of the reasons “my father is fighting so hard for immigration reform. The system is broken.”
Gabriel Sedano, a former maintenance worker who had worked at the club since 2005, was fired and spoke to The Post.
“I told them they needed to consider us. I had worked almost 15 years for them in this club, and I’d given the best of myself to this job,” Sedano said, according to the paper. “I’d never done anything wrong, only work and work.”
