“Like a sweatshop”: the not-so-glamorous lives of foreign Trump models who say they worked in the US illegally https://t.co/sJhePW7wyQ
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) August 30, 2016
Mother Jones has published an article that claims that Donald Trump's New York modeling agency, Trump Model Management, "has profited from using foreign models who came to the United States on tourist visas that did not permit them to work here."
The models, including Rachel Blais and two others who were given the pseudonyms Anna and Kate for anonymity, said that they lived in dorm-style quarters at an undisclosed address near Tompkins Square Park.
When Blais lived in the apartment [starting in 2004], she recalled, a Trump agency representative who served as a chaperone had a bedroom to herself on the ground floor of the building. A narrow flight of stairs led down to the basement, where the models lived in two small bedrooms that were crammed with bunk beds — two in one room, three in the other. An additional mattress was located in a common area near the stairs. At times, the apartment could be occupied by 11 or more people.
"We're herded into these small spaces," Kate said. "The apartment was like a sweatshop."
Living in the apartment during a sweltering New York summer, Kate picked a top bunk near a street-level window in the hopes of getting a little fresh air. She awoke one morning to something splashing her face. "Oh, maybe it's raining today," she recalled thinking. But when she peered out the window, "I saw the one-eyed monster pissing on me," she said. "There was a bum pissing on my window, splashing me in my Trump Model bed."
Blais gave the publication a detailed financial statement showing that that Trump's agency charged her as much as $1,600 a month for the bunk bed.
On the campaign trail, Trump has not only strongly criticized illegal immigrants but has also proposed criminal penalties for people who overstay their visas. Trump's campaign spokesperson, Hope Hicks, told Mother Jones "That has nothing to do with me or the campaign." She referred questions to Trump Model Management, who did not respond.
Mother Jones notes that "violating immigration rules has been the status quo in the fashion world for years."
H/T DNAinfo
17 comments:
Yes, he's a hypocrite. But he's our hypocrite.
Dump Trump!
When it comes to Donald Trump, It's all lies, all the time. Donald Trump promises to start a trade war with China and Mexico by slapping tariffs on all their products, even though he makes all of his products in China and Mexico. Trump also is against illegal immigration which he says are stealing our jobs, even though he runs a model agency that used illegal immigrants that were stealing American jobs. Some people say that his wife Melania did the same thing when she came to the US to work as a model, but that's none of our business.
Trump promises to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, and even though the Mexican President said they won't pay for it and has compared Trump to Hitler. So Trump is going to meet him today in Mexico so he can come back after he has been rejected and claim that secret deals are being made with unnamed people who oppose the unpopular Mexican President and who will pay for the wall. Or maybe he will just come back and say the imaginary wall -- which will never be built -- will now be 20 feet higher to retaliate against Mexico. As long as Trump lies big to his supporters, they will love him.
It's all lies, all the time, yet Trump is still within a few points in the polls on becoming President. It's obvious that many Americans don't care about the truth, and don't mind being lied to, as long as they can live in whatever fantasy bubble they happen to occupy. These people actually think that Trump will get them and their kids better jobs, even though Trump stuffed hordes of gorgeous young foreign women into basement rooms where they could be urinated on by homeless people, just so he could make a quick buck. It's beyond disgusting.
Trump supporters are just like the new residents of the East Village, and the City in general, they live in an alternate universe, a bubble that only exists in their own heads. You know it's a bubble because when you try to pop it they become very angry and hostile. The bubble is the drug they need to make them less scared of a changing world in which they are not in the majority.
The bubbleheads are willing to pay huge sums for their housing because they realize that self-segregation is not free, and they are only comfortable when they are around people who are just like them. Trump sells them the lie that gives them the hope their kids will survive in a world with no good jobs for people who didn't go to the top schools, where the purchasing power of the Dollar has been permanently destroyed given the massive costs of housing, education, healthcare, and raising children. They want to believe the same guy who started Trump University must know secrets to creating wealth. But the only secrets to wealth that Trump University ever had was how to make Donald Trump even wealthier.
All the wealth has gone to the 1%, where it is hoarded and stashed in art collections and stocks and offshore accounts and luxury real estate. The manufacturing jobs have gone to China and service jobs India, and more plants are being built in Mexico than here. Trump is their last hope, but there's no hope there at all, there's only Donald Trump figuring out how to take away more of their money.
The Donald = Biggest JERKOFF in 100 years.
Ok so trumpet man doesn't know how to put up his models and he doesn't know.how do to the simplest thing of feeding his crew either.
Having worked for his production I had to threaten them with leaving their site when they tried to bring me pretzels and potato chips for dinner.
I had to remind them that production people are not treated in such a manner.I gave them 20 min and they ended up bringing me burger king a far cry from the flank steak and salmon I'm used to enjoying from such local favorites as the Smile.
I really wish that the masses of people who follow such an idiot as Dump man knew what he's really all about.
I guess I can finally talk about this now that my ndr agreement has run out!!
Cheers
Which is worst for America, Trump or the people that support his ideas?
I've heard horrific things about the modeling industry from friends who have and still model. Just crazy.
Giovanni, after having read your diatribe against The Donald, allow me to say this:
(Stands up and applauds wildly.)
I am by no means a fan of Trump but if we're talking about people who are untruthful, hopefully there is enough intellectual honestly to include Hillary Clinton in that group.
Giovanni - you are right on the $$$$$.
Trump will not start a trade war with Mexico because there are very few factories left in Mexico. They're in China and India.
But, better a trade war than a real war, with Russia, which is what you'll get with Clinton.
Keep in mind that the Republican-controlled Congress will refuse to work with Trump, so he won't be able to get anything done, but they'll have no problem working with Clinton, who supports everything they support.
Thanks Gojira and 3:10PM. But to paraphrase Presdident Obama, don't just clap, vote! I met a few Trump supporters out at the US Open yesterday and boy were they a bunch of bigots. One guy was complaining about the LGBTQ movement and all these "hyphenated" groups that get special privileges and trigger warnings. This guy worked on Wall Street and has saved up a bundle of cash so his kids will never have to work, but he still complains that immigrants are stealing all of our jobs. But he couldn't name any immigrants who has stolen any jobs on Wall Street. I'm afraid there are a lot more closet Trump supporters out there who support this kind of populist bigotry, and will use the excuse of Hillarys e-mails to stay home on Election Day, or vote for Trump. So everyone tell your friends in swing states to go vote, or else one day they might find themselves working in one of Donald Trump's sweatshop modeling agencies.
The Home for Wayward Models - 190 East 7th St
Funny how people want to make an issue over Trump's model wife's immigration status but conveniently look the other way when hordes cross the border with impunity every day. Not a single one of you knows anything about or has the least bit of curiosity to look into the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act; nor have you ever asked yourselves why so many people even need to enter this country illegally. You complain about exploitation but then demand the flood gates to be opened so workers can be exploited. If you actually cared about Mexicans, you might consider that allowing the poor and underemployed to stream out of Mexico and into American to be worked for slaves wages takes tremendous social pressure off the Mexican authorities to do anything about the problems inherent in their own country, and meanwhile American corporations get fat off the cheap labor. These corporations, by the way, and the financial houses that back them, are also the very same ones prop up the Republicans and the Democrats.
So, the solution to the problem is not voting for Hillary Clinton, in case you haven't figured that out yet (and you haven't). Every presidential election is an opportunity for Americans to come face to face with their own monumental ignorance and hypocrisy, and each and every time they fail.
Donald Trump is a loathsome narcissistic buffoon who makes Hillary Clinton seem almost the safe and reasonable choice. And yet with the exception of all of the neoconservatives behind the Bush regime, I'm willing to bet most of Hillary supporters absolutely despised GWB and everything he stood for, even though Bush and Hillary's policies are objectively the same.
People say Donnie doesn't have the experience to be the President of the United States and I agree. How many secular Arab nations has he overthrown? His ties to the mafia? Please. Get back to us when you've destabilized entire countries and created and funded the very same boogeymen that you ask me to take my belt off at the airport for and in live in fear of.
Donald Trump exploited some models! Hillary Clinton is a murdering, sociopathic old crone who can't finish a sentence without lying. She is bought and paid for by the very same entities you damn out of the other sides of your mouths but you're going to vote for her anyway.
You know, some people think there's some elite plan to reduce the population of the earth by 95%. When I look around and see the dizzying levels of hypocrisy I can't help but hope and pray to a non-existent God that this isn't just a crazy conspiracy theory. Amen.
Only factual details please, not Assange vague allegations
The kvetchers may have moved on to they burbs, but they're here with us in spirit.
@9:07AM Hello Jared Kushner, I think I've read some of your political screeds plastered on lampposts around the Village. I'm sure we all look forward to joining your Donald Trump Conspiracy Cult and hearing about how stupid we are. But so far Doanld Trump is the only one actually talking about using nuclear weapons, even talking about using them in Europe, and wondering why he can't use them if we have so many just laying around. He is literally the only one who could wipe out 95% of the population, and the only thing that would survive would be his nuclear powered hairpiece. And that's why I'm with her, and by her I don't mean Melania.
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