1 week ago
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While touting the installation of new flag poles at the White House on Wednesday, President Donald Trump paused to ask the workers involved an awkward question about their immigration status.
“Do we have anybody here?” Trump asked the workers, who were flanking him in an apparent photo opportunity. “Any illegal immigrants?”
While some shook their heads, few responded to the abrupt and bizarre query.
“They’ll find out,” he continued while gesturing toward the reporters gathered in front of him. “They’ll be checking you. You won’t believe it. Your whole life will be destroyed because of this press conference.”
“They’ll be ... He’s a so-and-so. This one’s from you-know-where,” he said.
Trump then seemed to frame himself as an ally to anyone who may be undocumented in the group, a contradictory stance given his embrace of mass deportations.
“Don’t worry, I think you’re going to be OK,” he said to one individual. “I’ll be right behind you. Far behind you.”
The interaction added to the wackiness of Trump’s fixation on the new flag poles, which he took time to celebrate on Wednesday while debating the U.S.’s role in the military offensive Israel is taking against Iran.
It also came as Trump has instituted hardline policies that have taken aim at legal and undocumented immigrants. Trump’s administration has detained students and professors who entered the U.S. legally for expressing views the administration disagrees with, while also rolling back protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who previously had legal status. It’s also ambushed undocumented immigrants at court hearings, targeted students and parents and raided businesses.
In recent weeks, ICE agents have reportedly ramped up enforcement as they try to meet a White House goal of arresting 3,000 people a day.
Trump’s comments alluded to the inconsistent positions that reporters have previously caught him taking on immigration issues as well.
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In 2019, The Washington Post interviewed 48 undocumented people who had worked for one of the Trump Organization’s properties, all of whom said their managers were aware of their immigration status.
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