Photo taken by undocumented immigrant Ricardo Aca—a response to Trump's racist accusations about immigrants.
Ricardo Aca came from Mexico to the U.S. with his family when he was 14 and now works in a restaurant at Trump Hotel in Manhattan.
"I know I could lose my job just for talking about Trump," Aca says in a profile filmed by Chase Whiteside, "but it doesn't make me proud to go to work every day under his name."
Aca and his family—his mother, stepfather, and sister—are exactly who Donald Trump promises to deport if he's elected president.
"We're going to keep the families together, but they have to go," Trump said Sunday of undocumented immigrants on NBC's "Meet the Press."
So Aca, who has earned his Associate Degree in commercial photography, has been fighting back by shooting photos of immigrants holding signs with messages like "Not a Criminal" and "Not a Drug Dealer."
"Trump keeps pointing out all these immigrants that have done all these terrible things," Aca says, "but those aren't the immigrants that I know. That's not what we're like and photography is a way for me to show that."
Aca also relays a sentiment that could be very predictive of the 2016 elections:
"Other Republicans have criticized Trump's comments, but to me they all seem to have the same position on immigration. I mean, I may have an accent, but I’m not stupid."
That's the message pinging all over Spanish-language media outlets like
Univision,
Telemundo affiliates, and
many many others.
Donald Trump has once again upstaged the entire the Republican Party with his mass deportation "position paper." Now most of the GOP candidates are racing to catch up with his extreme immigration policy.
For anyone who thought maybe Trump wouldn't drag the entire field down with him, think again. No one's speaking up loudly enough for undocumented immigrants like Aca to believe there's a lick of difference between them.
Head below the fold for the video.
9:46 AM PT: NYT is now up with a profile of Aca too: http://www.nytimes.com/...