Let's build a wall around Donald Trump

Alternet - Trump’s recent comments about how Mexicans crossing the border are often drug dealers and rapists have angered a number of the laborers working on a Trump hotel. The Washington Post interviewed 15 people working on the $200 million hotel, and many admitted they had crossed the Mexican border. “It’s something ironic. The majority of us are Hispanics, many who came illegally. And we’re all here working very hard to build a better life for our families.”

“Do you think that when we’re hanging out there from the eighth floor that we’re raping or selling drugs?” Ramon Alvarez, a 48-year-old window 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 piece also quotes Ahmad Samadi, the 26-year-old site foreman who arrived in the US last year from Afghanistan. Most of the workers here are migrants,” said Samadi, “I don’t think it’s right, what he said. They’re hard workers.”....

A group of immigrant workers nicknamed the Polish Brigade knocked down the Bonwit Teller building so that Trump Tower could be constructed. They claim that they were paid less than $5 an hour with no overtime and worked 12-hour shifts every day. Many were not paid for their work after the contractor went insolvent.

“'We worked in horrid, terrible conditions,'' a worker named Wojciech Kozak told the New York Times in 1998. ''We were frightened illegal immigrants and did not know enough about our rights.''....

The Daily Beast’s Michael Daly wrote a comprehensive piece on the situation this July and summarized in his conclusion: “The tower that is his crown jewel and symbol of [Trump’s] wealth continues to stand on ground cleared by 200 undocumented workers who labored off the books, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for no more than $5 an hour with no overtime.”