New York, NY – Today the largest union of hospitality workers in North America condemned Donald Trump’s August 7 ICE raids targeting poultry workers in Mississippi, reiterating the dignity of labor done by all workers regardless of their immigration status and vowing to double down on efforts to oust Trump in 2020.

“It is deeply disturbing that as Donald Trump crowed about his plans to fly to El Paso in an attempt to console Latinos targeted by a racist madman that his rhetoric emboldened, he and his administration were executing the largest ICE raid in over a decade,” said Enrique Fernandez, international vice president for immigration, diversity, and civil rights at UNITE HERE. “Donald Trump’s record on race, as well as working-class families, speaks for itself and shows his fundamental failure to understand that all labor has value and that America thrives when immigrant communities thrive in local economies. It is too little too late for Trump to decry white supremacy now when he has implemented racist immigration policies that destroy hard-working families, including the ongoing separation of immigrant families, exploitation of undocumented workers at Trump International properties, and the termination of legal immigration programs like TPS and DACA.

“The Mississippi workers targeted in these raids are hardworking people doing honest work to provide for their families – their employers count on them; their communities thrive because of them; their children have a brighter future because of them. It is clear that the only way to end attacks on working-class immigrant families is to deport Donald Trump from the Presidency in 2020 and send Congressional obstructionists right out with him.”

UNITE HERE represents over 300,000 North American hotel, casino, and food service workers, and is a long-time leading voice for comprehensive immigration reform, particularly around TPS, DACA, family separation, and the exploitation of undocumented workers at Trump properties. UNITE HERE made international headlines in a Thanksgiving 2017 protest at Mar-A-Lago over Haitian TPS being terminated and was a major partner in a broad labor coalition event to reunite immigrant children with their families in summer 2018. The Trump administration still has failed to reunite those families.

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UNITE HERE has more than 300,000 members working in the hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry, transportation, and airport industries in the U.S. and Canada, including many immigrant members. Learn more at www.unitehereimmigration.org