No one should be surprised, but when irony is this thick you just have to pounce all over it.
This Sunday, the Washington Post discovered that undocumented immigrants are working on a hotel construction project in Washington D.C. – a project headed by none other than Donald Trump.
The Post also points out that some of those workers are aware of Trump’s labeling of Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and “criminals” and they’re not happy about it.
“Do you think that when we’re hanging out there from the eighth floor that we’re raping or selling drugs?” one worker from El Salvador told the Post. “We’re risking our lives and our health. A lot of the chemicals we deal with are toxic.”
“The majority of us are Hispanics, many who came illegally,” said 29-year-old Ivan Arellano. “And we’re all here working very hard to build a better life for our families.”
From the Post:
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.
“Most of the concern is that this escalates into a bigger problem,” said Daniel Gonzalez, 45, a sheet metal worker from El Salvador who crossed the border in the 1980s to escape his country’s civil war. He became a U.S. citizen after a federal immigration judge granted him asylum, he said.
“He might come one day and pretty much tell us to get the heck out of here,” Gonzalez said of Trump.
When questioned by the Post, Trump’s spokespeople said that any hiring of illegal immigrants would be the fault of the contractor on the project.
Featured image: Matt McClain/The Washington Post
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