Impeached President Donald Trump faked some concern when a reporter pressed him during the White House’s propaganda briefing on Wednesday about the cruel exclusion of undocumented immigrants from stimulus aid, despite paying billions in taxes annually. Trump said, “What are you going to do? It's a tough thing … it's a very sad question, I must be honest with you.”
But reverting back to his true form, Trump told undocumented families to blame themselves, saying “they came in illegally,” and that “we have a lot of people who are citizens of our country that won’t be able to have jobs.” But who has neglected to sufficiently act in the face of this pandemic? Trump. And who has not only exploited undocumented workers at his businesses, but also lied about not being able to find U.S.-born workers in order to hire more foreign workers? You guessed it.
The fact that the president of the United States has run his political campaigns on an anti-immigrant platform while exploiting undocumented workers behind the scenes is one the nation’s worst-kept secrets. We’re written many times about the brave immigrants who have spoken out about working for the Trump Organization, like Sandra Diaz, who lacked legal status when she worked as a personal housekeeper at Trump’s golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. There are many others too, she said.
“I know from experience that he continues to lie about immigrants, like last night in his speech,” Diaz said following Trump’s State of the Union address in February. “He knows immigrants, many undocumented, kept his businesses running for decades. We did many tough jobs. We cooked, fed and cared for him, his friends, White House staff, and his family. Trump exploited so many of us for profit now he exploits us for politics. He and his family know he’s wrong. It’s cruel and it’s sickening.”
Nineteen other former Trump workers also gathered for a CNN town hall last year, with Jose Juarez working so closely to him that part of his job was serving him one of those notorious Diet Cokes in iced cups. He said Trump knew he was originally from Mexico because he told him so. When asked by CNN if Trump also knew that he was undocumented, he replied, “I think so.” Trump now claims that he knows nothing about hiring undocumented workers, but he was sure singing their praises just a couple years ago.
Trump also lies (shocker) when he claims to give a shit about U.S.-born workers. “For years, President Donald Trump has insisted it’s impossible to find Americans to fill seasonal jobs at his hotels, resorts, and wineries, leaving him no choice but to hire foreign guest workers instead,” BuzzFeed News reported last year. But in fact, records showed that of dozens of U.S.-born workers who applied for a job at his resort, “Only one of them appears to have been hired.”
As we’re noted before, all families in the midst of this pandemic deserve support regardless of immigration status—not just because it’s the just and decent thing to do, but because our government also takes the tax contributions of undocumented families without any complaint or hesitation. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented workers pay nearly $12 billion in state and local taxes annually, and have pumped $100 billion into the Social Security fund over a decade, which is money they’ll never see again unless they can adjust their immigration status.
“What are you going to do?” Trump asked. Well, the answer is simple. We should help those families, and if he cared, he’d be making that push loudly. But he doesn’t. He sure does love their labor though. One of Diaz’s former colleagues, Victorina Morales, told The New York Times in 2018 she “had dealings with Mr. Trump that go back years, and her husband has confirmed that she would on occasion come home jubilant because the club owner had paid her a compliment, or bestowed on her a $50 or sometimes a $100 tip.”