As MAGA Republican President Donald Trump ramps up the agenda put forth for him by the misogynist, White supremacist, Christian nationalist Heritage Foundation's Project 2025—which includes importing White people and deporting as many Black and brown people as possible in response to the Great Replacement conspiracy theory—more and more 2024 Trump voters are asking why they're being negatively impacted.
Business owners, who as a matter of routine hired non-White documented and undocumented immigrants, are complaining that the agenda they endorsed in the voting booth is now hurting their bank accounts. People like roofing company owner Vincent Scardina of Florida.
Six of Scardina's roofers—all from Nicaragua—failed to show up at a job. That's one third of his company's workforce.
When their vehicle was found by the side of the road, their families discovered the men—almost all of whom are in the United States on work permits—were abducted by the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
It's a story that keeps repeating wherever ICE has taken up operations.
Scardina told local NBC News affiliate NBC6 that he agrees with most of what Trump does, but:
"It's going to be really hard to replace those guys. We're not able in Key West to just replace people as easily as, say, a big city, very limited people to pull from, and then you would have to train them, and that takes sometimes years."
Becoming emotional, Scardina added:
"Well, you know, you get to know these guys, you become their friends, just not an employer, but a friend, and you see what happens to their family. It's… It's quite a shock."
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Then Scardina repeated the same sentiment as many owners of restaurants, construction companies, landscaping companies, and hospitality industry employers that voted for Trump back in November.
Scardina said he bought Trump's claim Homeland Security and ICE were going to deport criminals, but he now thinks ICE is just "trying to meet quotas."
He said:
"What happened here? This situation is just totally, just blatantly, not at all what they said it was."
"It's not just happening to me. I mean, it's happening across the board to several contractors. I know they're all being hit by this hard. I know of one landscaper that lost nine or 10 of his whole crew he had and he's just totally out of business all of a sudden, just like that."
You can see the news report here:
Regilucia Smith, the men's attorney, told NBC6:
"They are legally here. They have an authorization to stay."
Smith said all but one of the workers had all of their paperwork in order and had pending asylum cases.
"Valid work permit, not even close to be expired… and again, no criminal record, not here, not in Nicaragua."
While people were outraged over more extrajudicial activity by HHS Secretary Kristi Noem's department and its agents, they were less than sympathetic for Vincent Scardina and anyone who enabled the Trump administration.
Company employee Virgil Scardina—whose possible familial relationship to Vincent is undisclosed in the news reports—was angered by the injustice.
Virgil Scardina told NBC6:
"It's mind-blowing. It's just not right. It just isn't right."
"It was pretty obvious from the beginning that they were pulled over simply because they were six Latino men in a work truck."
"It’s been a lot of tears. It's been an incredible amount of sadness, and we still just can't figure out why."
Mindful of the company's concerns, Virgil Scardina stated that wasn't the worst part of the situation.
"Our business is struggling. You know, make no mistake. This has the potential to cause us some significant problems. But I still get to go home and give my child a hug at night. These guys do not, and they don't deserve that."
"It's incredibly fearful, not just for people who are of Latino descent that might get targeted, but also for small business owners, also for the local community, and ultimately, I just have to ask myself, who wins in this scenario?"
A no win situation, indeed—unless the end goal of this Project 2025 initiative is making America White(r) again.
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