----
Although this site is https-secure, we cannot guarantee that it or any
provided links are safe; be sure your antivirus and other security systems are
up to date.
July 8:
Trump Tower Was Built on Undocumented Polish Immigrants’ Backs
The Donald may denounce illegal immigrants as ‘rapists,’ but his empire’s crown
jewel was erected on land cleared by 200 undocumented Polish workers.
Thirty-five years ago, a small army of illegal immigrants was used to clear the
site for what became the crown jewel of
Donald Trump’s empire.
The 200 demolition workers—nicknamed the Polish Brigade because of their home
country—worked 12-hour shifts, seven days a week with no overtime to knock down
the old Bonwit Teller building and make room for Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in
Manhattan.
According to testimony in a protracted civil suit in federal court, the laborers
were paid $5 an hour or less when they were paid at all. Some went unpaid after
the contractor had financial troubles. A few never received even the paltry sum
that was owed them for their dirty and hazardous efforts preceding the
construction of Trump’s monument to his own wealth.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-tower-was-built-on-undocumented-polish-immigrants-backs
August 25: What Donald Trump Knew About
Undocumented Workers at His Signature Tower
In the summer of 1980,
Donald Trump faced a big problem. For six months, undocumented Polish
laborers had been clearing the future site of
Trump Tower, his signature real estate project on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue,
where he now lives, maintains his private offices and hosts his
presidential campaign.
The men were putting in 12-hour shifts with inadequate safety equipment at
subpar wages that their contractor paid sporadically, if at all. A lawyer for
many of the Poles demanded that the workers be paid or else he would serve Trump
with a lien on the property. One Polish worker even went to Trump's office to
ask him for money in person, according to sworn testimony and a deposition filed
under oath in a court case.
For help, Trump turned to Daniel Sullivan, a 6-ft. 5-in., 285-lb. labor
consultant, FBI informant and future officer of the Teamsters Union. "Donald
told me he had difficulties ...," Sullivan later testified in the case. "That he
had some illegal Polish employees on the job."
"I think you are nuts," Sullivan testified that he told Trump. "You are here
negotiating a lease in Atlantic City for a casino license and you are telling me
you have got illegal employees on the job."
http://time.com/4465744/donald-trump-undocumented-workers/
November 28: President Donald Trump hired
hundreds of undocumented Polish immigrants to demolish a New York City
building in 1980 and paid them as little as $4 an hour without providing proper
safety equipment to do the job, court documents show.
The workers and their contractor, William Kaszycki of Kaszycki & Sons, sued
Trump for unfair labor practices in 1983. After litigation dragged on for 15
years, Trump ultimately paid $1.375 million to settle the case.
January 17: ICE's
7-Eleven Raids Won't Get Rid of Undocumented Workers. They'll Only Make Them
Less Visible ... Recent ICE raids could push undocumented immigrant laborers to
find less formal means of employment.
https://psmag.com/social-justice/ice-7-eleven-raids
September
30: Devin Nunes’s Family Farm Is Hiding a Politically
Explosive Secret
Rep. Devin Nunes is head of the House Intelligence Committee and one of
President Trump’s biggest defenders. For years, he’s spun himself as a straight
talker whose no-BS values are rooted in his family’s California dairy farm.
... why the Nunes family might be so secretive about the farm: Midwestern
dairies tend to run on undocumented labor. The northwest-Iowa dairy community is
small. Most of the farmers know one another, and most belong to a regional trade
group called the Western Iowa Dairy Alliance (though WIDA told me NuStar is not
a member). One dairy farmer said that the threat of raids from ICE is so acute
that WIDA members have discussed forming a NATO-like pact that would treat a
raid on one dairy as a raid on all of them. The other pact members would provide
labor to the raided dairy until it got back on its feet.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a23471864/devin-nunes-family-farm-iowa-california/
November
2: 4 myths about how immigrants affect the U.S.
economy
December 11: The Trump administration ramped
up arrests at businesses suspected of employing undocumented immigrants in 2018,
but data obtained by USA TODAY show that federal agents did so by mostly
targeting those working illegally and not their employers.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was ordered to quadruple worksite
enforcement this year, and it did just that. In fiscal year 2018, which ended
Sept. 30, ICE set 10-year highs for the number of worksite audits conducted
(5,981) and criminal charges filed (779).
ICE leadership claimed its crackdown is focused
on employers and employees equally as part of a balanced approach to worksite
enforcement, but the data show that the majority of arrests in 2018 were of
workers.
January
19: These U.S. industries can't work without illegal
immigrants
The nation's attention is once again focused on the southern border, where
President Trump claims the U.S. is facing a "crisis" over illegal
immigration.
Sometimes forgotten as the nation focuses attention on migrants currently trying
to cross the border is that millions of undocumented immigrants continue to live
in the U.S. – and most of them work.
