When Will Trump Be Held Accountable for Hypocrisy, Worker Abuse?
In a must read piece, Joshua Partlow of Washington Post juxtaposes President Trump’s insistence on curbing the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States with the collective silence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Department of Homeland on “one company that long relied on unauthorized labor: Trump’s own business.” The only component more deafening than the administration’s silence is the administration’s hypocrisy. At America’s Voice, we expect a proper investigation into these serious allegations perpetrated by the Trump Organization from the executive branch, Congress, state authorities, the press and public watchdogs and protection for the brave workers who have come forward to blow the whistle.
In his article, Partlow amplifies the calls by Democratic members of Congress, including most recently House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, to open an investigation into the Trump Organization’s criminal enterprise and repeated practice of exploiting undocumented workers.
The piece is excerpted below or available online in full here.
The Washington Post has interviewed more than 30 people who worked for the Trump Organization without legal status, some for more than a decade. Some also did personal jobs for Trump’s sons. In response to these and other reports, the Trump Organization pledged to better vet its workforce.
The latest rebuff to Democratic lawmakers came this week. Immigration and Customs Enforcement missed a Tuesday deadline to respond to a request from House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), asking whether an investigation had been opened into the hiring practices of the president’s company. ICE said only that it wouldn’t meet the April 9 deadline, a Thompson spokesman said.
It was just the latest effort by congressional Democrats to provoke action against Trump’s company. Last month, congressional Hispanic Caucus members criticized the “apparent failure” of the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the Trump Organization about the issue. Before that, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) wrote in February to the FBI and DHS about the “serious nature of these allegations.”
And on Tuesday, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) complained about the lack of response to his own letter to the FBI.
…The silence comes as Trump has turned his attention back to his signature issue — illegal immigration — amid a burgeoning crisis at the border. Frustrated with the record number of families from Central America turning up at the border to seek asylum, Trump ousted his Homeland Security secretary and other leaders in the department this week in an effort to install a more aggressive team.
White House officials declined to answer questions about Trump’s use of undocumented labor, and ICE did not respond to requests for comment this week.
Asked in January about what Trump thinks should happen to businesses that hire undocumented workers, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump is “one of the people that’s identified the fact that we have a problem and we should fix our immigration system.”
For additional background and previous analysis from America’s Voice on the Trump Organization’s pattern of hiring and exploiting undocumented immigrants, see: https://americasvoice.org/tag/bedminster/
