Trump Used Undocumented Workers To Build Trump Tower, Court Documents Show; More 🛠 [View all]
- Trump Used Undocumented Workers Building Trump Tower, Court Documents Show, Oct. 17, 2024. - PHOTO: Young Real Estate Developer Donald Trump Employed Undocumented Workers in 1979
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On the campaign trail presidential candidate Donald Trump rails against undocumented workers and promises mass deportations. He claims to be a staunch supporter of American workers.
Trump, however, does not tell his audiences that he actually employed illegal labor to build his signature property and when they sued him for unpaid wages, he tried to have them deported. In 1979, Trump had managed to secure the lease on the old Bonwit Teller building at 56th Street and Fifth Avenue, eventually signing a 50-50 deal with the property owner to develop what would later become New York Citys tallest glass structure. Facing zoning restrictions, Trump made large donations to politicians and curried favor with powerful members of the New York Board of Estimate, which approved a zoning variance that allowed the project to go forward.
Trump needed to clear the site that would become Trump Tower. Notoriously stingy, Trump did not want to pay union wages for the dangerous work of demolishing the site, so he turned to undocumented Polish workers, many of whom had overstayed their tourist visas and had no legal right to work in the United States. Many of these workers were so desperate to earn money that they worked removing asbestos or doing demolition without the correct safety equipment.
Years later, Trumps role in hiring the undocumented Polish workers would be entered into court testimony. One day Trump was inspecting renovation work when he saw the Poles hard at work, according to court testimony by the foreman overseeing the job. The foreman testified that Trump personally approached him to ask who they were. Those Polish guys are good, hard workers, the foreman recalled Trump saying. Soon, Trump met the workers boss, a man named William Kaszycki, and asked Kaszycki if the men could do demolition work, even though Kaszyckis firm had never done that kind of work.
Kaszycki testified Trump told him to start a new demolition company and directed him to get new and different insurance for the job. Kaszycki, who has since died, testified that he accepted Trumps $775,000 fee offer flat out. And with Trump offering an additional $25,000 if the building came down quickly, Kaszycki promised him that the Poles would work day and night, seven days a week. ...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/17/2277598/-Trump-Used-Undocumented-Workers-to-Build-Trump-Tower-Court-Documents-Show
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Also: Trump Spent Years Exploiting Immigrants He Now Claims Are Poisoning Our Country, 2/14/2024
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/14/2223331/-Trump-spent-years-exploiting-immigrants-he-now-claims-are-poisoning-our-country