WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said it was not unusual for golf clubs like the one he owns in Bedminster to have a workforce of unauthorized immigrants.

“Probably every club in the United States has that because it seems to be, from what I understand, a way that people did business,” Trump told reporters at the White House Friday before departing for his first weekend in Bedminster this year. “But we’ve ended -- whatever they did, we have a very strict rule that -- those rules are very strict. But it seems that every club, practically, in the United States -- that’s the way they did business.”

Asked if there were any unauthorized immigrants working at his golf clubs, Trump said, “I don’t know because I don’t run it.”

But he said in the past that he did not hire those unable to work legally in the U.S.

Trump’s efforts to curtail immigration has been a major focus of his presidency. But it turned out that his Bedminster golf club employed unauthorized immigrants for years until they were laid off months ago.

“I guess his message to migrants is, ‘We’ll pay you to come here but take away your kids if you try,’ and, 'If you do something illegal, you will be punished but if I do something illegal, it’s totally normal; every rich person does it,"” said Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-7th Dist., whose district includes Bedminster.

“I think most Americans would want the law to apply equally to all,” he said.

Unauthorized immigrants who formerly worked for the Trump Organization visited lawmakers’ offices earlier this year to seek protection as they talked to law enforcement agencies looking at whether any laws were broken. While working for Trump, they said they were abused and mistreated, and threatened with deportation if they complained.

One of those fired from Bedminster, Victorina Morales, was invited by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-12th Dist., as her guest to Trump’s State of the Union address in February. Some of the former workers at Trump golf clubs in Bedminster and Westchester County, N.Y., said they were given false papers to allow them to work.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

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