Latino immigrants and unions: Donald Trump has said that he has great relationships with both groups, whose labor has helped the mogul mould a hotel empire and, in his words “become very rich.” But immigrant employees of the hotels that bear the Trump brand don't agree, and are coming out of the woodwork in opposition to the presidential candidate. In New York City, a Mexican immigrant in the country illegally named Ricardo Aca who works as a busboy at a Trump property appeared in a video saying "It doesn't make me proud to go to work every day under his name." Trump has said that the majority of Mexican immigrants are “not [Mexico's] best people,” “criminals,” and “rapists.”
What about the unions? Trump has said he has fine relationships with unions in New York City. But in Las Vegas, Nevada, those unions are reportedly banne. On Wednesday, a gathering outside of the Trump International Hotel was organized by Democratic presidential candidate and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, ahead of a larger protest planned for Friday. As a campaign stop in a hotly contested battleground state -- in the primaries as well as the general election -- O’Malley may have helped draw cameras and microphones from major press outlets who otherwise wouldn’t cover the event. Following his appearance at Tuesday’s AFL-CIO conference, the mini rally offered a perfect followup for the candidate’s pro-immigrant, pro-union platform.
“Our economy is not money, our economy is people,” O’Malley said “And it’s all of our people. There are a few things that Donald Trump doesn’t understand. [First] we want our economy to grow, we need to treat our workers with dignity and respect, pay them better, and respect their right to organize. Second: in every generation, new American immigrants have made our economy stronger and have made our economy better.”
Behind O’Malley representatives of a local culinary union held a bilingual banner appropriating Donald Trump’s presidential campaign slogan “Make America great again!” adding the words “Mr. Trump, start here.” In remarks to the press, Culinary Workers Union Local 226 secretary-treasurer and Nicaraguan immigrant Geoconda Arguello Kline highlighted employee’s demands for increased job security, health care access and other worker benefits. Trump hotel employees say that they are planning to march on the property again on Friday to call for the right to unionize. Kline paraphrased a statement released earlier this week, which was quoted by the Washington Post ahead of the event.
"Donald Trump says he wants to make America great again,'" Arguello Kline said. "Mr. Trump should start right here in Las Vegas with workers at his hotel. Many of them are immigrants who work hard to provide for their families. They deserve equal treatment and should be respected for their contributions to this great city."
Nationally, Donald Trump is the frontrunner of the Republican presidential field. A recent CNN poll found that he’s only 9 points in a one-on-one contest against Hillary Clinton, who is favored in the Democratic primary. That’s down from 16 points in July.
Clinton leads the Democratic field in national polling and fundraising.Like fellow candidate Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, O’Malley has tried to come out of Clinton’s shadow. But while Sanders already has a national following -- from his many Senate -- few are familiar with O’Malley outside of Maryland. He’s snagged headlines for a number of detailed policy statements on immigration and other progressive issues, but hasn’t given him the exposure he needs to increase his national poll numbers, which hover within in the margin of error. If O’Malley’s event was meant to troll Trump , it didn’t immediately bear fruit. Mr. Trump’s Twitter account was decidedly silent on the meeting.
At Wednesday’s event, O’Malley called for more Democratic primary debates. He and Sanders’ campaigns say that the current set of six will help Hillary, and hurt chances of a serious challenge to her candidacy. He also reiterated his opposition to family detention of child migrants.
“To pen up children in internment camps is un-American,” he said.
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