Trump Winery Fires Seven Undocumented Employees AFTER Annual Harvest

It looks like Trump Organization finally delivered on the promise it made a year ago that it would weed out undocumented employees from its properties. Virginia-based Trump Winery fired seven employees on Monday, which might be due to their lack of legal immigration status, according to The Washington Post.

The report was based on interviews with two of the affected Trump Winery Workers. One of the workers is 42-year-old Omar Miranda who originally came from the South American nation of Honduras. The other fired worker who was interviewed requested the publication to keep his identity private to protect family members who are currently in the U.S.

Both former employees believe that their dismissal was timed “so that the company could take advantage of their labor as long as possible,” The Hill reported. They were given the pink slip right after the annual harvest was completed.

“I think they wanted to get their product out well, the grapes, to make sure that was taken care of, and once things were slow, they could fire us all,” the second employee, who requested anonymity, said.

“They didn’t make this decision in the summer because they needed us a lot then,” Miranda agreed. Both he and the other employee said they worked for the winery for more than a decade.

Anibal Romero, an immigration lawyer representing some of the former workers from various Trump properties, claimed that the winery purposely kept the workers in their employ until the end of the harvest despite knowing their immigration status, Newsweek reported. “Getting rid of them at that point could have caused problems for the wine,” Romero said.

“Donald Trump has known about these workers for months,” Romero also told the Washington Post. “He waits until the fields are tended, grapes picked, wine made. He then discards them like a used paper bag. Happy New Year — you’re fired.”

According to Miranda, he used fake documents that he purchased for $120 when he applied in the winery before it was bought by Donal Trump, who rehired him in 2013. “The papers one uses, they know it’s something illegal,” he said. “The owner knows. The winemaker knows.”