The Washington Post sent a reporter to interview workers at Donald Trump’s new hotel under construction in Washington, D.C. and — SURPRISE! — found that some of those interviewed had come to the United States illegally.
This, of course, shouldn’t be a shock to anyone with a pulse, but it is amusing to members of the MSM:
https://twitter.com/passantino/status/618261547924656128
As @realDonaldTrump rages, illegal immigrants work on his new hotel near the White House. via @washingtonpost @aolivo http://t.co/eN2c9zLgme
— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) July 7, 2015
Hispanic workers building Trump’s DC hotel have thoughts about him…and immigration debate. http://t.co/LeK9d1Swpw pic.twitter.com/e3I3q9lP4t
— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) July 7, 2015
Perfection: @aolivo talked to the undocumented immigrants currently building Trump’s DC hotel. http://t.co/iGclQtaMAF
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 7, 2015
As gotcha stories go, however, this does leave much to be desired as it is based on a less-than-impressive 15 interviews:
I have no use for Trump, but this has to be one of the lamest "gotcha" stories in the history of journalism. http://t.co/U6R7DkHLKe
— CLA (@ConservativeLA) July 7, 2015
From the Washington Post:
Interviews with about 15 laborers helping renovate the Old Post Office Pavilion revealed that many of them had crossed the U.S-Mexico border illegally before they eventually settled in the Washington region to build new lives.
Several of the men, who hail mostly from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, have earned U.S. citizenship or legal status through immigration programs targeting Central Americans fleeing civil wars or natural disasters. Others quietly acknowledged that they remain in the country illegally.
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And if anything, the Post just help Trump prove that the Federal Government isn’t doing enough to prevent illegal immigrants from using phony documents to get jobs in the U.S.
Here’s what Trump’s people told the Post, which quite rightly places the blame for the hiring of the illegal immigrants on the subcontractors, not Trump:
In response to questions from The Washington Post, Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, issued a statement saying that the company and its contractors followed all applicable U.S. immigration laws when hiring the site’s several hundred workers.
“Our contractors are required to have prospective employees produce documentation that establishes identity and employment eligibility in compliance with immigration law,” the e-mailed statement said.
Lend Lease, the lead contractor at the site, “requires all contractors performing work at the project to follow all applicable federal, state and local laws,” the statement said.
Michael D. Cohen, executive vice president and legal counsel to Trump, said the question of illegal hiring practices had not arisen before at a Trump work site.
“Mr. Trump, who is the 100 percent owner of the Old Post Office, hired one of the largest contractors in the world to act as the general contractor,” Cohen said in a telephone interview. “That company is Lend Lease. They then go out and employ subcontractors to work for them. The obligation to check all workers on site is exclusive to Lend Lease. This of course assumes that the assertion regarding the employees’ status is accurate.”
A spokeswoman for Lend Lease declined to comment on any aspects of the project, which is expected to be finished by early 2016.
There are a lot of reasons to bash Donald Trump, as liberal or conservatives, but this isn’t it.
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