Campaign Action
Another day, another report of Donald Trump’s businesses exploiting undocumented immigrant workers, this time at his golf club in Westchester County, New York. The Washington Post reports that undocumented workers were ordered to keep working extra hours after clocking out, without pay, sometimes past midnight. “It was that way with all the managers,” said waiter Jose Gabriel Juarez. “Many of them told us, ‘Just clock out and then stay and do the side work.’ There was a lot of side work.”
Dozens of undocumented immigrants are now on the record as having worked at Trump’s businesses, some alleging emotionally and physically abusive conditions. “In interviews, six former Trump workers told The Washington Post that they felt systematically cheated because they were undocumented,” the latest report states. “Some told The Post about being denied promotions, vacation days and health insurance, which were offered to legal employees. The same pattern of unpaid labor was also described by a former manager.”
These are really serious allegations that would get any employer in trouble, but instead the acting Homeland Security secretary suggested during congressional testimony this week “that Trump's hiring of undocumented workers is small fry and below the law,” immigrant rights organization America’s Voice said, as other Trump allies shield him from the Mueller investigation. The AP has confirmed that New York Attorney General Leticia James, however, has received the workers’ complaints.
What the Trump Organization has been doing here—“multi-state criminal patterns of hiring and exploiting their undocumented workforce,” America’s Voice said—is BS that needs to be investigated, and the workers at the center of this are victims who should be protected while that happens. “Not only is The Trump Organization engaged in criminal activity against my clients, but Donald Trump is a world-class hypocrite,” said attorney Anibal Romero, who represents a number of these former workers. “He has and continues to profit on the backs of the very undocumented immigrants he claims are the largest threat to America today. Trump shut down the government over immigrants, yet hires them to do jobs no one else will do … the list goes on.”