An undocumented worker fired from President Donald Trump’s New Jersey golf club will be in attendance at Trump’s State of the Union address next week after being invited by a Democratic congresswoman.
Victorina Morales, a Guatemalan native, worked for years at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey before describing herself as an undocumented worker to The New York Times in December. She was ultimately terminated from her job and currently faces deportation.
Morales was invited to Trump’s State of the Union address by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-New Jersey, which the congresswoman’s office and Morales’ attorney confirmed separately to CNN.
The Washington Post first reported the news of the invitation.
“I hope that in his State of the Union address, Donald Trump will finally acknowledge the real face of immigrants in this country — women and children fleeing violence, law-abiding, tax-paying people who would do almost anything to be Americans,” Watson Coleman said in a statement Wednesday. “And if he can’t, I’ve invited Victorina so that he may look her in her eyes to tell his lies to a familiar face.”
Along with other former club workers, Morales was on Capitol Hill Tuesday meeting with lawmakers to push for an investigation into the Trump Organization’s hiring practices and for protection from deportation.
Morales, who came to the US illegally in 1999, told CNN in an interview Tuesday that she had no problem getting hired by the club in 2013, and claimed that managers helped her obtain fake documents for employment.
After experiencing what she described as abuse by her supervisor and an increasingly hostile environment since Trump’s election, Morales said she decided to speak publicly even though that risked deportation.
Guests are traditionally invited to the State of the Union address by the President and members of Congress, often to highlight a political message.
Among the President and first lady’s guest list last year were beneficiaries of his tax cut plan and families whose loved ones were killed by the MS-13 gang.
Democratic lawmakers last year invited guests personally affected by the immigration debate and the #MeToo movement.
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, Ashley Killough and Elizabeth Joseph contributed to this report.
