The two Mexican line cooks noticed nothing remarkable about the opening of the 2019 season at President Trump’s golf club in Colts Neck, N.J.

Juan Espinoza and Abelardo Montes filled out the same forms and presented the same fake identification cards to their superiors as they had done for the past seven years, they said.

They showed up to cook, spent one week on the job, and then were summoned to a manager’s office early one Saturday morning in April. Their documents were invalid, they were told. They could punch out and leave the premises.

“They said a new rule had started called E-Verify,” Montes said. “That was the reason they fired us.”