Senator Calls for Homeland Security to Investigate Trump’s Model Agency

“I am extremely concerned by the claims levied against Trump Model Management.”

Former Trump model Rachel Blais: Elle Magazine; Donald Trump: Gerald Herbert/AP; US Senate Letterhead: Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Editor’s Note: Read why we can do this type of reporting—and consider supporting it with a tax-deductible donation during our pledge drive.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is calling on federal authorities to investigate Trump Model Management for alleged labor and immigration violations, in the wake of a Mother Jones investigation of the company.

Three former Trump models, all non-US citizens, told Mother Jones they worked for the GOP nominee’s agency while on tourist visas. Immigration laws require employers to seek work authorization for any foreigner they hire. Financial and immigration records included in a recent lawsuit filed by a fourth former Trump model indicate that she also worked for Trump’s agency without a proper visa.

“I am extremely concerned by the claims levied against Trump Model Management and ask that you open an investigation into the company’s employment practices,” Boxer wrote in a Wednesday letter to León Rodríguez, the director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), a part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Boxer wrote that the allegations in Mother Jones‘ exposé were “disturbing,” and she called on the agency to “make clear that immigration and labor violations like these will not be tolerated.” The letter was also sent to Labor Secretary Tom Perez.

Read the full letter here:

The letter from Sen. Barbara Boxer sent Wednesday morning requesting that the US Immigration and Customs Service investigate employment practices at Trump Model Management. Click to enlarge. Sen. Barbara Boxer

Two of the former models told Mother Jones that they were coached on how to evade the scrutiny of immigration and customs officers by using fake pretenses for entering the country and even writing false addresses on customs forms.

While working for Trump’s agency, the models said, they were charged exorbitant rent to bunk with other Trump models in cramped, dormitory-style quarters while competing for coveted work visas. Those who didn’t make the cut were sent home—but not until after rent and other fees were deducted from their Trump Model Management earnings.

Trump Model Management has yet to comment publicly on the allegations, and Donald Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, declined to answer detailed questions about the story. “That has nothing to do with me or the campaign,” she told Mother Jones last week.

Gov. Mike Pence, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota last Wednesday, “These sidebar issues that come up, his business enterprise can address those and I’m confident they’ll address them forthrightly.”

Boxer has been a prominent critic of Donald Trump, and last week, as Trump traveled to Mexico for a surprise meeting with President Peña Nieto, she took to Twitter to blast the nominee:

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate