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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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Coronavirus death toll hits 12 in US, helicopter flies test kits to stranded cruise ship - world news

The death toll from coronavirus in the United States rose to 12 on Thursday with the latest fatality recorded in King County, Washington, and 53 new cases broke out across the country, striking for the first time in Colorado, Tennessee, Texas and San Francisco. A helicopter flew testing kits to a cruise liner idled off the coast of California and barred from docking in San Francisco after at least 35 people developed flu-like symptoms aboard the ship, which has been linked to two other confirmed cases of COVID-19.Twenty new cases of the virus were confirmed in King County, Washington, local health officials said, bringing the total in the county to 51 with 11 deaths. One death has been recorded in California.“This is a critical moment in the growing outbreak of COVID-19 in King County,” the county said in a written statement, referring to the respiratory disease caused by the virus.“All King County residents should follow public health recommendations. Together, we may potentially impact the spread of the disease in our community,” it said. Many of the cases in Washington state have been linked to an outbreak at a nursing facility in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, including six deaths. Alphabet Inc’s Google on Thursday joined Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc and Microsoft Corp in recommending employees in the Seattle area work from home, after some were infected with the coronavirus. The companies’ work-from-home recommendation will affect more than 100,000 people in the area.New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the number of cases in that state had doubled to 22 after the federal government approved its use of additional laboratories, boosting testing capacity. Cuomo told a press conference that total would likely “keep going up.”Also read | Immigration delayed as Delhi international airport steps up coronavirus screening processOf the new cases in New York, eight are connected to a Manhattan lawyer who lives in Westchester County and was previously diagnosed with the virus, two are in New York City and one in Nassau County.COLORADO, TENNESSEE AND TEXAS REPORT CASESTexas confirmed its first three coronavirus cases and Tennessee and Colorado each reported one, bringing the number of affected states to 16.More than 3,200 people worldwide have died from the respiratory illness that can lead to pneumonia.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) early on Thursday reported 149 confirmed and presumed U.S. cases. Those numbers are presumed not to include the 53 new cases reported on Thursday. The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed an $8.3 billion bill to combat the outbreak 96-1, a day after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved it. The bill now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature.More than $3 billion of the approved funds would be devoted to research and development of coronavirus vaccines, test kits and treatments. There are currently no approved vaccines or treatments for the illness that began in China and has infected more than 95,000 people in some 80 countries and territories.Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference the new cases in New York City - a man in his 40s and a woman in her 80s - were critically ill and being treated in hospitals. Both had “substantial” pre-existing health conditions, he said.Neither person had recently visited any other affected countries or had any connection to other confirmed cases, suggesting the city is confronting local person-to-person spread. California, which has declared a statewide emergency in response to the outbreak, reported six new cases, including two in San Francisco also deemed likely to be a result of “community transmission,” local health officials said.Also read | Lot unknown about coronavirus, but rise in temperature may help1 MILLION TEST KITSU.S. health officials say they expect to be able to get enough privately manufactured coronavirus tests - around 1 million - to public laboratories this week with the capacity to test about 400,000 people.CDC official Anne Schuchat said her agency would also supply kits by the end of the week that could test around 75,000 people. “Right now, it is a challenge if you are a doctor wanting to get somebody tested,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters following a briefing with lawmakers.Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the U.S. response, urged Americans not to purchase masks if they are healthy to free up supply for healthcare workers and people who are sick.“Unless you are ill, you have no need to buy a mask,” Pence said on a visit to Minnesota’s 3M Co , which has ramped up production of masks to help respond to the coronavirus.“The risk to the average healthy American from contracting coronavirus remains low,” Pence said, adding that “there will be more cases,” especially among more vulnerable populations such as seniors and those with chronic health conditions. Global equity markets tumbled as coronavirus cases outside China mounted, fuelling warnings that economic growth is likely to reach its weakest level since the global financial crisis a decade ago.The main U.S. stock indexes closed down more than 3% with the Dow falling 969 points. Read the full article

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plusorminuscongress · 5 years ago

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New story in Politics from Time: Immigrant Workers Fired From President Trump’s Golf Clubs Seeking White House Meeting To Avoid Deportation

(NEW YORK) — A group of immigrant workers fired from President Donald Trump’s golf clubs say they want to meet with him at the White House to make the case that they should not be deported.

The 21 maids, groundskeepers and other workers fired earlier this year from five of Trump’s clubs asked their former employer in a letter this week to remember all their hard work and give them a chance to make their case in person why they should stay in the country.

“I’m hopeful that he’ll look at the letter. I believe he has a heart,” said Gabriel Sedano, who worked for 14 years as a handyman at Trump’s club in Westchester County, New York, before he was fired in January.

The response on White House stationery Wednesday, in what appeared to be a form letter, assured the workers that “we are reviewing your message.” The White House didn’t respond Friday to a request for further comment.

The troubles for Trump workers started in December when a maid who had made the president’s bed at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, told The New York Times that a supervisor there knew she and other housekeepers and workers were in the country illegally, and used their status against them if they complained about working conditions.

Then other workers at other Trump clubs without proper documents — some employed by him for a decade or more — began speaking out, and the Trump Organization began rounds of firings.

The Trump Organization has said it does not tolerate workers who lie about their status and only recently discovered its workers were in the country illegally. It did not respond to requests for comment about the proposed White House meeting.

Democrats in Congress requested earlier this year that the FBI look into whether the Trump Organization acted as a “criminal enterprise” by knowingly hiring workers with false documents and even helping them procure such papers, as some fired workers have claimed.

A lawyer for 39 former Trump workers, Anibal Romero, said he has been interviewed by the FBI as well as the offices of attorneys general in New Jersey and New York, though he declined to talk about what was discussed.

The letter from the workers said the president knows many of them and asked him to “do the right thing” and “not deport us and our friends and family.”

“You know we are hard workers and that we are not criminals or seeking a free ride in America,” the letter said. “We all pay our taxes, love our faith and our family, and simply want to find a place for ourselves to make America even better.”

Former club handyman Sedano said he couldn’t believe it when he was fired in January because he was a trusted employee who was asked to do work on Eric Trump’s house nearby, and given access to come and go as he pleased.

“I had keys to the house, all the codes. I knew him personally,” said Sedano, who has three children in the U.S., the youngest 8. He added: “I was the first one fired. There was a list. I was the first one.”

By BERNARD CONDON / AP on July 05, 2019 at 07:05PM

#Time #politics #PlusOrMinusCongress #±Congress #Indega±#IndegaPlusOrMinus #TimeMag #TimeMagazine

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carmeliataylor001 · 3 years ago

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toldnews-blog · 6 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/politics/democrat-meets-with-undocumented-immigrants-who-were-fired-from-trumps-golf-club/

Democrat meets with undocumented immigrants who were fired from Trump's golf club

Undocumented immigrants who were fired from Trump National Golf Clubs after revealing their immigration status say they suffered physical and verbal abuse while employed there, and now fear deportation and retaliation after their employment was terminated.

Interested in Immigration?

Add Immigration as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Immigration news, video, and analysis from ABC News.

Four of those undocumented workers were on Capitol Hill Tuesday to meet with Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, where one of President Donald Trump’s golf clubs is based.

The firings highlight the disconnect between Trump’s businesses demonstrably relying on undocumented workers while the president himself relentlessly crusades against allowing undocumented immigrants into the country — even shutting down the government over his demands for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I applaud the courage of these hardworking immigrants,” Menendez said in a statement. “The hardships they experienced while working for Trump National speaks volumes about President Trump’s hypocrisy, when he rails against immigrants while simultaneously exploiting their status and labor to enrich himself.”

The employees with which Menendez met were fired after publicly revealing their immigration status, and are now “living under constant fear of being subjected to deportation or other retaliation by the Trump administration,” according to a press release from Menendez’s office.

Courtesy Sen. Bob Menendezs office

Undocumented immigrants who say they were fired from Trump’s golf courses meet with Sen. Bob Menendez on Capitol Hill.

“We are hard workers and all we care about is working,” Margarita Cruz, a former housekeeper at the Westchester club told ABC News on Wednesday. “We are hoping that maybe someday we’ll have some sort of work permit.”

Some of the workers allege that they were provided false identification documents by their employers. Others allege that they were encouraged by their employers to provide false identification documents.

They also claim that they suffered verbal and physical assault from Trump property supervisors — and were repeatedly threatened with deportation while on the job.

An aide to Menendez told ABC News that the workers say that it was common knowledge that they were undocumented.

The fired workers also claimed to Menendez’ staff that there are more immigrants without legal status currently working for the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.

“

”

The hardships they experienced while working for Trump National speaks volumes about President Trump’s hypocrisy, when he rails against immigrants while simultaneously exploiting their status and labor to enrich himself.

Trump Organization officials did not immediately respond to ABC News requests for comment.

About a dozen undocumented workers from Latin America employed by the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, N.Y. were fired on January 18 because of their immigration status, The Washington Post reported.

Trump Organization officials have said that they plan to institute E-Verify, a federal program that allows employers to check if new hires are legally allowed to work in the U.S., at every one of its golf clubs, hotels and resorts, according to the Washington Post.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, candidate Donald Trump claimed that his businesses already used the system and proposed a federal mandate that all companies do the say.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Eric Trump said that the family business has begun implementing stricter employment standards in the wake of news reports exposing dozens of undocumented workers at the president’s properties.

“I must say, for me personally, this whole thing is truly heartbreaking,” Eric Trump told the Post.

Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images, FILE

President Donald Trump walks onto the green at the Trump International Golf Course in Mar-a-Lago, Fla., during an invitation for U.S. Coast Guard service members to play golf, Dec. 29, 2017.

That comment surprised some of the immigrants who met with Menendez.

“

”

I must say, for me personally, this whole thing is truly heartbreaking.

“I don’t know why he feels like that, because after so long seeing us, and like — without notice — like, go talk to us — just fired us like garbage, why does he feel like that?” Gabriel Sedano, a 14-year employee of the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, N.Y., who was among those fired, told ABC News in an interview on Wednesday.

A lawyer representing Sedano and dozens of other undocumented workers who are former Trump employees told ABC News that his clients are witnesses to a federal crime and should be protected.

“They understand that, indeed, they are material witnesses to a federal crime and any attempt to try to remove them from the United States could be considered obstruction of justice,” attorney Anibal Romero said.

“In the United States… even though you are undocumented, the law protects undocumented immigrants when they are victims of a crime,” he added.

Menendez said he intends to defend the dismissed former Trump property employees.

“I plan to lend my voice to raise awareness about the plight of these and other immigrants working in such a hostile environment and support oversight efforts and investigations on this matter,” Menendez said.

“I believe that any attempt to try to affect [the workers’] status during this period of time could be considered obstruction of justice at the end of the day.”

Menendez said he plans to follow up with the relevant federal agencies to raise his concerns while those agencies look into the matter, one of the senator’s aides told ABC News.

“The workers have material information and we are exploring ways to support them,” the aide said.

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.

#abcnews #border security #Business #deportation #Donald Trump #election news #golf #immigration #indian politics #laborer #New Jersey #political news #political news articles #politics news #Robert Menendez #US politics #white house

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moonwalkertrance · 6 years ago

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Trump National Golf Club in N.Y. Fires Undocumented Workers, Lawyer Says

For eight years, it seemed to Margarita Cruz that the management at the Trump Organization’s golf club in Westchester, N.Y., did not notice — or did not care — that the green card and Social Security card she had used to get hired were fake, purchased in Queens for about $120.

Ms. Cruz, a housekeeper, said she cleaned guest rooms, offices and shops at the club. She laundered sheets and pool towels. But that all ended this month, she said.

Ms. Cruz and about a dozen other employees — housekeepers, landscapers and a head chef — at the club, Trump National Golf Club, were fired Jan. 18 because they were in the country illegally, according to interviews with Ms. Cruz and the former workers’ lawyer.

The firings were first reported on Saturday by The Washington Post.

The New York Times reported in December that undocumented immigrants had been employed at another club owned by the Trump Organization, the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., and that they were kept on the payroll for years even though management there had some knowledge of their fraudulent papers.

Several workers deemed ineligible to work in the country had already been fired at the Bedminster club, according to people familiar with the matter.

The employment of undocumented workers at Trump Organization properties runs counter to President Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, which he has made central to his campaign and his presidency. He is currently in a heated political battle to build a wall along the border with Mexico, which he claims would stop drugs and crime. Evidence does not support Mr. Trump’s thesis.

There is nothing to indicate that Mr. Trump or Trump Organization executives knew about the workers’ immigration status at either golf club. But Ms. Cruz, 44, said she believed that management at the Westchester club knew about her immigration status before January.

Her papers were requested again two years ago, she said, not just when she was hired. Anibal Romero, who represents Ms. Cruz and 14 other former workers at the golf club, the majority of whom were fired Jan. 18, was stronger in his wording.

“I’m not buying that they didn’t know,” Mr. Romero said.

Neither Ms. Cruz nor the other former workers received benefits like health insurance or a pension, as other golf club employees did, Mr. Romero said. Most of his clients came into the country through Mexico, Mr. Romero said, and were originally from countries such as Mexico, Ecuador and Honduras.

“This was a two-tiered system,” he said. “The people who were legal and the people who are undocumented.”

He said the workers were fired by being individually called into a room by an executive, who read their names off a list.

The White House referred questions to the Trump Organization on Saturday. The Trump Organization and the Westchester golf club did not respond to requests for comment.

In a statement to The Post, Eric Trump, who manages the Trump Organization with his brother Donald Jr., said: “We are making a broad effort to identify any employee who has given false and fraudulent documents to unlawfully gain employment. Where identified, any individual will be terminated immediately.”

Ms. Cruz entered the United States in 2009 near Piedras Negras, Mexico, on the Texas border, she said, with a 12-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son. Her parents had paid a coyote $11,000 for the trip.

She said that in Mexico she earned about $40 a week working at a restaurant. She started at $11 per hour at the golf club, and then got a raise to $14 per hour. She said she did not have any savings when she was fired because she had been paying back her parents.

Mr. Trump’s political rhetoric has been surprising, she said, because he would regularly come by the golf club before his election and give the workers $50 tips in cash.

“He would come over and say hello, ask your name and how long you had worked at the club,” Ms. Cruz said. “He would ask you how you liked the rug, or a picture on the wall, things like that.”

She added, “If he really did hate Latinos so much, why did he come over to talk to us?”

She said some of her colleagues had worked at the golf club for 18 years.

“I couldn’t understand why he started talking like that about Latinos now and why he fired us,” she said.

Mr. Romero said he is seeking federal and state investigations of the golf club to see if it had been exploiting the undocumented workers.

#trump national golf club (bedminster #nj)#Donald Trump #Immigration #GOP #politics and government #Immigrants #DonTheCon #TrumpLies #hypocrisy #Us/Mexico #ICE #Racism #Racists #Latinos

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the-lost1-blog · 4 years ago

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ufcw · 5 years ago

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Protecting your constitutional rights during a workplace raid

In the United States, every person — whether documented or undocumented — has the constitutional right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions of the police, FBI, or ICE, whether on the street, in a car, or at home.

Under the law, ICE must have proof you are not from the United States to deport you. They can use the following information against you:

If you run and ICE catches you

If you tell ICE where you were born or that you don’t have papers

If you carry false documents

If you carry papers from your country

If you are questioned by ICE, you are NOT required to reveal any information, such as your name, address, or home country. If you are questioned or detained, however, it usually is a good idea to give your name so that friends, family, or your attorney can locate you.

What you can do now

The targets of the mass raids are individuals who have been ordered deported. Any individuals that were issued deportation orders because of failure to appear in court, should contact a reputable immigration lawyer, nonprofit, or immigrant rights organization to help them file a motion to reopen their order of deportation.

Gather and keep important documents in a safe place, make copies, and make them accessible to a trusted person.

Identify reputable immigration, family, and defense lawyers for rapid response. Speak to a family law attorney about the need to sign a power of attorney for the caretaking of children and handling finances.

Obtain travel documentation for all family relatives.

Carry a Know Your Rights card with contact information of reliable attorney and other emergency contacts. Memorize important phone numbers.

If you are stopped by ICE or if ICE comes to your home

DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR if an immigration agent is knocking on the door.

DO NOT ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS from an immigration agent if they try to talk to you. You have the right to remain silent.

DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING without first speaking to a lawyer. You have the right to speak with a lawyer.

If you are outside of your home, ask the agent if you are free to leave and if they say yes, leave calmly.

GIVE THIS CARD TO THE AGENT. If you are inside of your home, show the card through the window or slide it under the door. The cards read:

“I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution. I do not give you permission to enter my home based on my 4th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under the door. I do not give you permission to search any of my belongings based on my 4th Amendment rights. I choose to exercise my constitutional rights.”

These cards are available to citizens and noncitizens alike.

During a workplace raid

To report a raid use United We Dream National Raid Hotline 1-854-363-1423 or send a text message to 877877.

ICE must have a judicial warrant (a warrant SIGNED BY A JUDGE) or the employer’s permission to enter the workplace.

ICE can enter a public place without a warrant.

Workers should stay calm.

Workers should not run. Union representatives should not warn workers that immigration has arrived or urge them to run.

A union observer should document (write, not film) events taking place during a raid.

Workers have the right to remain silent.

Workers have the right to an attorney.

Workers have the right to refuse to sign anything without talking to an attorney.

ICE is not supposed to take someone’s fingerprints unless ICE already has a reason to arrest them. Workers should NOT consent to being fingerprinted, and if they are, they should say out loud that they do not agree with being fingerprinted.

If ICE arrests you, you have the right:

To remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Anything you say may be used against you.

To understand the charges against you. If you need an interpreter, ICE must provide one.

To be represented by an attorney (at your own expense) and to receive a list of agencies offering free legal services before answering questions.

To refuse to sign documents, such as for voluntary departure. It is particularly important to consult with an attorney before signing if:

You are afraid to return to your home country

You have lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years

Your family members have amnesty or other papers

You already have a pending ICE case

You are accused of using false documents

To make a telephone call to an attorney, family member, consulate of your home nation, friend, or the union (memorize their phone numbers).

To be released on bond and to have a hearing to reduce your bond if you cannot afford it.

To have a hearing before an immigration judge and to appeal any adverse decision by the judge. You have the right to stay in the U.S. while you appeal.

How can the UFCW help workers during workplace raids?

The union should enforce employer obligations on issues that affect immigrant members. The union could be liable for failing to represent members if it fails to challenge employer abuse. The union has no reason to determine the immigration status of a worker; unions must represent all workers regardless of status. However, a union representative must not assist a worker in presenting documents that the representative knows are false.

The union may request information about and bargain over employer I-9 audits.

Request information about the reason for and the scope of the audit, and request copies of any documents the employer received from any government agency.

The union may represent workers in reverification of work authorization documents.

Employers are only allowed to reverify identity and work authorization documents for expired documents, such as an expired work permit or visa, but not for a lawful permanent resident card with an expiration date. If the reverification is based on the expiration of the employee’s work permit, bargain for an unpaid leave of absence. Object to unlawful reverification of current workers such as non-citizen nationals, lawful permanent residents, refugees, asylees, or individuals with temporary protected status. Weingarten allows a union representative or steward to be present if an employer seeks to meet with a worker regarding employment authorization or other immigration issues. Grieve any adverse actions against workers based on unlawful reverification attempts.

If an employer gets a SSN “no-match” letter, the union can remind them that:

A “no-match” letter does not provide authority for an employer to terminate, suspend, lay off, or impose other discipline on an employee, and an employer who does may violate federal labor law.

The purpose of a “no-match” letter is to notify an employer when a reported employee’s name or social security number does not match Social Security’s records. The SSA has no authority to enforce the immigration laws, and the employer should give employees an opportunity to update their documents and information.

Ensure that contracts have provisions that state: “The Company will not discipline, discharge or otherwise act against any worker who is absent from work for up to [NUMBER] days because of arrest, detention or incarceration, and those days will not count against the worker’s time and attendance record.”

Engage with employers about immigration enforcement to establish protocols for their interaction with ICE in the workplace. (E.g. confirm that ICE may not enter private property without a warrant signed by a judge.)

Train members, stewards, and staff on the basic rights of individuals during an immigration enforcement action, the union’s rapid response plan, and family safety plans.

Establish relationships with local community leaders, allies, non-profits, immigrant rights groups, and legal service providers to be in communication during raids and mobilize the community to support workers and families.

Additional Resources

United Latinos of the UFCW Know Your Rights Resources

United Latinos App Available in the App Store and Play Store

Additional Know Your Rights Resources from CLINIC are available here:

Rapid Response Toolkit

Emergency Planning for Families

Know Your Rights

Additional Know Your Rights materials in various languages from the ILRC are available here

A Know Your Rights video is available here.

Here is a list of local organizations that can support you and your community if you are impacted by a raid or other immigration enforcement activity:

Baltimore, MD

CASA Hotline 1-855-678-2272

Chicago, IL

Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights: 1-855-435-7693 (1-855-help-my-family)The Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP): 773-471-8208 ext 120 The Resurrection Project: 312–666-3062 National Immigrant Justice Center: 1-855-435-7693 (1-855-help-my-family) West Suburban Action Project (Proyecto de Acción de los Suburbios del Oeste): 708-410-2000

Houston, TX

For Families and Their Education (FIEL Houston): 1-713-364-3435

Miami, FL

Americans for Immigrant Justice: (305) 573-1106 Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC): (305) 571-7254

New York, NY

New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC): 212-627-2227 Make the Road NY: Brooklyn: 718-418-7690

Queens: 718-565-8500 Staten Island: 718-727-1222 Long Island: 631-231-2200 Westchester: 914-948-8466

BAJI New York, NY — Telephone: (347) 410-5312 New Sanctuary NYC https://www.newsanctuarynyc.org/

Newark, NJ Make the Road NJ: 908-368-1196

San Francisco, CA SIREN: Text this number for rapid response: 201-468-6088 SF Rapid Response Network: 415-200-1548 Alameda County Rapid Response: 510-241-4011 San Mateo County Rapid Response: 203-666-4472 (203-NOMIGRA) Santa Clara Rapid Response: 408-290-1144 Marin County Rapid Response: 415-991-4545

Southern California: CHIRLA: 888-6CHIRLA (888-624-4752)

Atlanta, GA Los Vecinos de Buford Highway: 770-715-7200 Asian Americans Advancing Justice: 404-890-5655 Coalicion De Lideres Latinos (CLILA): 706 529 9216 GA Latino Alliance for Human Rights: 770-457-5232

Denver, CO Colorado Rapid Response Network: 1-844-864-8341 Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition: 303-922-3344

New Orleans, LA New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice: Message them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NOWCRJ/

Washington, DC DMV Immigration Crisis Hotline 202-335-1183 CASA: 1-855-678-2272

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mikemortgage · 6 years ago

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Dems ask FBI to probe if Trump Org is ‘criminal enterprise’

NEW YORK — A group of House Democrats asked the FBI on Wednesday to launch an investigation into whether President Donald Trump’s company is a “criminal enterprise” after mass firings at two of his golf clubs where longtime workers were only recently discovered to be in the country illegally.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., and nine other House members sent a letter to the head of the FBI asking for an investigation into whether the Trump Organization knowingly hired workers without the proper documents, and even helped them procure false ones as some workers have alleged.

The letter says the allegations by workers interviewed in media reports raise “serious questions of criminal activity and numerous violations of employment laws” including conspiracy charges and forced or coerced labour.

“Instead of hiding in the shadows, some of these brave workers have now decided to come forward and detail an elaborate ploy by the Trump Organization to systematically procure cheap immigrant labour and employ undocumented immigrants — despite knowing that the documents they provided were false,” the House members wrote.

The letter also asks that the fired workers be offered protection from deportation as potential witnesses to crimes.

Trump has repeatedly called for cracking down on companies that hire people in the country illegally, saying they should get hit with a “huge financial penalty.”

The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has previously said it does not tolerate hiring anyone with false papers, and suggested rooting out those with false documents is not easy.

“Our employees are like family but when presented with fake documents, an employer has little choice,” Trump official Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, said in a statement after 13 workers were fired last month at his club in New York’s Westchester County. “This situation is not unique to Trump Organization — it is one that all companies face.”

Anibal Romero, a lawyer for 27 workers who were fired or left on their own at four Trump clubs, said that he has already been questioned by the FBI and the offices of the New Jersey and New York state attorneys general. He said he could not discuss the content of the discussions.

The FBI and the New Jersey attorney general’s office said they had no comment. The New York attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The letter Thursday to FBI Director Christopher Wray also cited previously reported allegations that some managers had threated to tell authorities that workers were in the country illegally if they complained about work conditions. One worker also complained about physical abuse, saying she was thrown against a wall three times at the Bedminster, New Jersey, club.

The Trump Organization has rejected those allegations.

“A thorough investigation into these claims was conducted immediately after they were brought to our attention,” the company said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press earlier this month. “No evidence was found to substantiate these allegations.”

Earlier this month, New York Attorney General Letitia James called for sharpening state law to make it clear that it is a crime for employers to threaten to deport workers without the proper documents if they complained about their wages or working conditions.

The Trump Organization has said it would register all its properties on E-Verify, a federal database where employers can check electronically whether workers are in the country illegally. As a candidate, Donald Trump said he used the system “on just about every job” at his properties, though that was not the case.

Most of Trump’s properties were not on E-Verify’s latest list of participating employers, including the three golf clubs in New Jersey and three in New York state where workers now represented by Romero used to be employed.

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racketnews · 6 years ago

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Trump Organization to use E-Verify for worker status checks

The Trump Organization, responding to claims that some of its workers were in the U.S. illegally, said on Wednesday that it will use the E-Verify electronic system at all of its properties to check employees’ documentation. A lawyer for a dozen immigrant workers at the Trump National Golf Club in New York’s Westchester County said recently that they were fired on Jan. 18. He said many had worked there for a dozen or more years. Workers at another Trump club in New Jersey came forward last month to allege managers there had hired them knowing they were in the country illegally. “We are actively engaged in uniforming this process across our properties and will institute E-verify at any property not currently utilizing this system,” Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said in a statement provided to The Associated Press. “As a company we take this obligation very seriously and when faced with a situation in which an employee has presented false and fraudulent documentation, we will take appropriate action.” http://dlvr.it/QxwjR5

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michaelblocklawyer · 6 years ago

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Immigration advocates join fight for driver's license bill - News 12 Westchester https://t.co/fjsIi7Aqgu

— Michael Block Lawyer (@michaelblocklaw) December 4, 2018

from Twitter https://twitter.com/michaelblocklaw December 03, 2018 at 07:08PM http://twitter.com/michaelblocklaw/status/1069820664201314304

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newssplashy · 6 years ago

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NEW YORK — On Friday, officials in New York still did not have answers to even the most basic questions about the children who had been separated from their parents at the southern border and relocated 2,000 miles away.

Both Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio sent letters demanding that information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

When it was not forthcoming, Cuomo threatened the 10 agencies that had accepted the separated children, and which the state also regulates, to turn over the children’s names or lose their operating certificates.

But because they are bound by their contracts with the federal government not to disclose information about children in their care, the agencies said they could not share it, even with the state.

So faith leaders and local elected officials pieced together the numbers: About 60 children each at Catholic Guardian Services, Lutheran Social Services of New York and Abbott House, all in the Bronx, according to officials who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information. Another 19 had been at the Westchester children’s residence visited by Cuomo on Thursday. And there were 243 at Cayuga Centers in East Harlem, according to the latest figures from the mayor’s office. Officials seemed to be learning new numbers every few hours, as they tried to account for the 700 children Cuomo spoke of Thursday.

The confusion underscored just how chaotic the situation was, with lawyers frantically scrambling to figure out how to represent the children, and Cayuga, which had the most children, urgently looking for staff and asking for more Spanish-speaking volunteers to serve as foster parents.

De Blasio blamed the Trump administration for the mess. “This was thrown together, this family separation policy, with no preparation for trying to figure out where kids would go that made any sense,” he said on WNYC radio Friday.

The mayor said it made sense to Cayuga officials that children were sent to New York, because there were “not a lot of places near the border that had this ability, as organizations, to provide the social services and provide a setting for these kids, or had enough foster care placements.”

The president ended the policy of separating children from their parents at the border with an executive order Wednesday, but there was not yet any plan in place to reunite them.

While their parents have faced prosecution at the border, the children are entitled to their own hearings. But getting to one is a tangled process that can take days, if not weeks. Immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza meets only several times a month to decide the fate of detained children, and getting cases on the docket is outside the lawyers’ control.

Migration counselors, as well as agency social workers, try to locate the parents first — and at least some of those parents have already been deported. “It’s not the same thing as, we met you today, we saw you today, we represent you; this is a process on a case-by-case basis,” said Anthony Enriquez, legal director of the unaccompanied minors program for Catholic Charities, a nonprofit organization that has been meeting with the children. It has 12 lawyers and a federal contract to work with unaccompanied minors.

Though many other lawyers have volunteered to help without pay, getting them into government-contracted facilities to see children under federal custody “takes a lot of coordination and requires permission,” Enriquez said.

And if the children are unable to make their wishes about their case known — at least one child as young as 9 months has been placed in New York, and some may speak indigenous languages rather than Spanish — Catholic Charities refers them to yet another organization with a federal contract. That group, the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, provides “ad litem” support to children in New York, to advocate for the best interests of the child, but only has two lawyers and one social worker in New York. On Friday, another lawyer was on the way.

“We have received a lot of referrals for very young children for the last couple of months, and we’re handling a lot of these cases,” said Elizabeth Frankel, the associate director of the Young Center.

Even if a child has a private lawyer, the process is not streamlined.

José Xavier Orochena, who is representing three Guatemalan children at Cayuga who were separated from their mother in McAllen, Texas, said he has encountered nothing but red tape. He called Catholic Charities to coordinate his representation. “I’m waiting for a call back,” he said.

“I called 26 Federal Plaza asking what’s their court date,” he said of the children. A lawyer for the government told him the children’s cases were “not even in the state of New York, and there’s nothing we have initiated against them as of today.”

Their mother, meanwhile, awaits her own court date at a detention center in Arizona, where Orochena will represent her, too.

Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., of Manhattan, who toured Cayuga’s building Friday — where children were seen wearing homemade masks, apparently to shield their identities — said the chaos was not evident inside. “I think they were very much under control,” he said, “and the social workers and the therapists that we met with seem to be very much under control.”

Mark Levine, a city councilman who also toured the center, said it was “desperate for more staff” and would be organizing a job fair Monday.

Allison Sesso, executive director of the Human Services Council of New York, an umbrella organization whose members include some of the 10 agencies, asked for some patience. “At the end of the day, these nonprofits are trying to be there for the kids,” she said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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clusterassets · 7 years ago

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New world news from Time: ‘We Weren’t Prepared for This.’ Inside the Accidental Liberation of a Concentration Camp

In early 1945, World War II was approaching its end in Europe, a conclusion that would officially arrive when the Germans surrendered to the Allies on May 7, 1945. In practice, that final period of the war was also the beginning of a new phase of the conflict, as troops and the general public alike began to discover the extent of the atrocities they’d been fighting over.

In some ways, that reckoning continues to this day. The timing of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which falls this Saturday, commemorates the anniversary of the Soviet Army liberating more than 7,000 prisoners of Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945. In the months that followed, troops from the USSR, Western Europe and the U.S. would liberate many more camps, as the Nazis scrambled to destroy the evidence of their crimes. Though the persecution of Jews and others was no secret, the liberation period was when many people were first forced to realize the extent of what the Nazi regime had been doing.

One such revelation took place three days prior to the Germans’ surrender, when U.S. Army soldiers stumbled upon the Gunskirchen Concentration Camp, a sub-camp of the death camp Mauthausen.

And the lives that changed that day have continued to intersect in surprising ways. At the time, Alan Moskin was an 18-year-old American soldier who helped liberate the camp and Nandor Katz was a 19-year-old prisoner. The two men, now 91 and 92, recently found out that they live less than an hour away from one other in New York state, thanks to a discovery by Halina Rosenkranz, the Westchester Jewish Community Services’s Holocaust survivors’ groups counselor.

In the week leading up to Holocaust Remembrance Day on Saturday, they spoke to TIME about what they remember from that fateful day and what they want future generations to remember about that time.

An Accidental Discovery

Moskin, who served in the Army with the 66th infantry, 71st Division, recalls that his side of the experience started when a group of U.S. Army combat soldiers stumbled upon a prisoner-of-war camp, holding mostly Royal Air Force members, near Lambach, Austria. The British prisoners told the liberating soldiers that they’d heard rumors of a different kind of camp, a concentration camp for Jews, just a few kilometers away.

“I remember my buddies and I looked at each other,” Moskin tells TIME. “We knew Hitler wasn’t fond of Jews, but we hadn’t heard anything about any concentration camps.”

The day — May 4, 1945 — was overcast as he and his fellow troops marched through a forest, trudging through wet ground, looking for the rumored camp. The first clue that the rumors were true was the smell.

“We tried to cover our mouths and noses with a bandana, but it got worse and worse, and all of a sudden I remember looking through some trees and seeing a big barbed wire sort of [guarding] a compound,” he says. “That turned out to be the Gunskirchen camp.”

With the war nearing its end, the troops faced only a very little bit of resistance as they approached the camp. Moskin himself shot a guard who refused to surrender, and then the group cut through the barbed wire and entered the camp.

Katz — speaking through his daughter, Raisa Katz, who translated for him — says the Americans came just in time: “Himmler had just sent a telegram to the commandant ordering the people running the camp to shoot everybody. But because the American soldiers came and surrounded the camp, he wasn’t able to carry out the order. He was afraid. He thought it best to surrender.”

And, as Raisa Katz points out, it was pure luck that the soldiers did arrive just then. “My father had spoken about the liberation day so many times when I was growing up, so I had this image of the American government sending the soldiers for the purpose of liberating the camp, giving [the prisoners] food, and the commandant surrendering,” she says. “So the most striking thing to me is that the Americans didn’t go to liberate the camp. This all happened by accident.”

What They Saw

What came next was something neither man would ever forget.

“There were dead bodies on the left, piles of dead bodies on the right — and their arms and legs looked like broomsticks covered with no flesh,” Moskin says. Slowly, the ones who were still alive stumbled toward them like “the living dead, zombies,” in striped pajamas with a sewn-on star of David, calling out in German for food, water and cigarettes.

“I remember my buddies who did [smoke] were handing out cigarettes and getting ready to light them, when they [the prisoners] took those cigarettes and pulled the wrapping off and started chewing the tobacco like a sirloin steak,” he says. The soldiers also distributed what they could from their own Army-issued rations. “Many of them would start biting and chewing so fast they started to grab their esophagus, and I remember they would start choking and falling to the crowd. We got so frightened. We didn’t know what was happening. And then the medics started screaming at us, ‘No solid food, damn it!’ We weren’t prepared for this.”

The situation was even more desperate in the barracks area.

“There was a little path or roadway with a dead horse on the ground. I can never forgot, three inmates had pulled off the bark of a tree and were digging it into the entrails of this dead horse. And then they reached down inside the dead horse, and pulled out the guts and started biting and chewing. You could see the blood squirt out.”

The inmates were willing to eat anything, attests Katz, a native of a small Carpathian Mountain town in present-day Ukraine who had been working in Budapest when he was taken to a labor camp in 1943 and then transferred to Mauthausen. “There were some people who would cut flesh off of dead bodies just eat something,” he says. “There was no water. A couple more days, I would have been dead.”

An Army lieutenant who knew he was Jewish asked Moskin if he spoke any Hebrew or German, so that he could communicate with the prisoners.

“I remember saying the German for ‘I am also a Jew.’ It just came out of me. I don’t know where I heard it,” Moskin says. “An elderly man, very emaciated, started to smile and came towards me and he went down on his hands and knees and started to kiss my boots, which were tainted with blood, vomit, and feces. I knew he was trying to be affectionate toward me, but it made me very uncomfortable to watch him kissing my filthy, bloody boots. So I picked him up under the armpits, and as he came up towards me I could see open, festering sores going up and down his neck, and lice coming out of those sores. You could imagine that I wanted to pull away because he smelled so badly, but I didn’t. He had wrapped his arms around me and he was crying. He kept saying ‘Danke [thank you], danke, Jew.’ That’s when I lost it a little bit and started to cry.”

In the days that followed, word trickled in from other Army outfits that the events at Gunskirchen were just one liberation among many.

“Every time we found out,” Moskin recalls, “we said, ‘My God, how many of these damn hellholes are there?'”

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Life After Liberation

After that day, Katz remained in the camp a bit longer, nursing his two brothers who had contracted typhoid fever, until they recovered enough to be taken to Budapest for treatment at an American hospital. He later made his way to the Soviet Union and resided there until 1973, when he immigrated to the U.S., where he worked as a silkscreen printer, raising his family in Philadelphia.

Moskin ended up staying in Europe until June 1946, as part of the U.S. Army of Occupation. An aspiring lawyer, he convinced an officer in charge to let him attend a day or two of the Nuremberg trials — an experience that only further cemented his career choice. But, despite working in the justice system, in the decades that followed he found it was too painful to talk about the injustice he had witnessed firsthand.

“I didn’t speak for 50 years about my experience,” he says, scared that nightmares of the dead horse would come back. “The kids say to me, ‘Oh, you had PTSD.’ We never heard that term. The only term we heard back then was ‘shell-shocked.’ I sucked it up. By the time I got home, I took a key and locked up that part of my brain, and I threw that key away. If anyone asked me about the war, I said, ‘I did my job, I was under [General] Patton and I don’t want to talk about it.'”

That changed in the 1990s when a woman at a local Holocaust museum, referred to him by one of his Army buddies, called to ask him to speak at an event. He hung up on her. She called back. After they spoke about the way Holocaust memory was evolving, from the 1993 publication of Deborah Lipstadt’s book on Holocaust denial to Illinois requiring school curricula to include the truth about the Holocaust, he agreed to tell what he had seen at an event on June 10, 1995, at the mall in Nanuet, N.Y.

He surprised himself by talking for a good two hours. It was the beginning of a second career as a Holocaust educator. “It was like a catharsis,” he says. “All that poison I had to bottle up inside me for 50 years, it just came out of me.”

Since then, he’s spoken to middle schools, high schools and colleges nationwide. “When we’re all gone, they [Holocaust deniers] are really going to come out of the woodwork,” he says. Katz says he was “overjoyed” to meet Moskin for the first time on Aug. 11, 2017, so they could corroborate their experiences. “I was happy that I met somebody who saw the conditions, so that my story wouldn’t be lost.”

Preserving that story, and its lesson, is a job that Moskin feels remains unfinished.

“I’m going to be honest with you, my generation failed,” he says. “We didn’t get rid of the hate and prejudice. There’s still hate out there, all over the place.”

But, as Katz sees it, that’s a job that will never be complete — which is why it’s important to remember that, even at the worst moments in human history, luck and goodness can run counter to evil.

“Even then, there were people that were good and kind,” he says. “Same thing now. There are some people that will always hate, and there are people that are good, and that’s just human nature.”

January 27, 2018 at 04:11AM ClusterAssets Inc., https://ClusterAssets.wordpress.com

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mikemortgage · 6 years ago

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Trump Organization to use E-Verify for worker status checks

NEW YORK — The Trump Organization, responding to claims that some of its workers were in the U.S. illegally, said on Wednesday that it will use the E-Verify electronic system at all of its properties to check employees’ documentation.

A lawyer for a dozen immigrant workers at the Trump National Golf Club in New York’s Westchester County said recently that they were fired on Jan. 18. He said many had worked there for a dozen or more years. Workers at another Trump club in New Jersey came forward last month to allege managers there had hired them knowing they were in the country illegally.

“We are actively engaged in uniforming this process across our properties and will institute E-verify at any property not currently utilizing this system,” Eric Trump, executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, said in a statement provided to The Associated Press. “As a company we take this obligation very seriously and when faced with a situation in which an employee has presented false and fraudulent documentation, we will take appropriate action.”

“I must say, for me personally, this whole thing is truly heartbreaking,” he added. “Our employees are like family but when presented with fake documents, an employer has little choice.”

“This situation is not unique to Trump Organization – it is one that all companies face. It demonstrates that our immigration system is severely broken and needs to be fixed immediately. It is my greatest hope that our “lawmakers” return to work and actually do their jobs,” he said.

Republican President Donald Trump has repeatedly cast the millions of immigrants in the country illegally as a scourge on the health of the economy, taking jobs from American citizens. He has said they also bring drugs and crime over the border.

He turned over day-to-day management of his business to Eric and his other adult son, Donald Jr., when he took the oath of office two years ago. The Trump Organization owns or manages 17 golf clubs around the world.

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itsjaybullme · 7 years ago

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The Trials of Sergio

Per Bernal

DATELINE: SATURDAY, MAY 20, 2017, WESTCHESTER COUNTY CENTER, WHITE PLAINS, NY

It was 10:20 p.m. as Jon Delarosa and Sergio Oliva Jr. stood waiting as the last two men standing—one of them would be declared winner of the 2017 New York Pro. It was Delarosa’s fifth attempt at the event and Oliva’s first. In fact it was the latter’s pro debut, a status earned when he took the super-heavyweight and overall titles at the 2015 NPC Nationals. Because of the inheritance of one of the most famous and lauded names in bodybuilding (his father, Sergio Senior, was three-time Mr. Olympia, 1967–69, and a leading icon of the sport), his debut was under extreme observation. It was like watching Mickey Mantle Jr. getting into the major leagues. Could the kid handle the burden of one of the most famous names in bodybuilding?

In his stentorian “Live from Burbank” TV announcer voice, emcee Bob Cicherillo rasped out the name “Jon Delarosa!” The runner-up slumped forward in disappointment, the winner sank to his knees and held his head in his hands, his body shaking with emotion.

It should have been one of the happiest moments of Oliva’s life; a dream fulfilled, critics answered. Instead it was the culmination of the most miserable and desperate period of his life. Absorbing the win caused a sense of relief to slowly, slowly envelop him. He digested his present position. At that moment of victory, he had hardly any money to his name. A long-standing sponsor had terminated his contract earlier in the year, and then a prospective new sponsor who seemed ready to make a deal pulled out eight weeks before his Big Apple assignment.

Courtesy of Sergio Oliva Jr.

A synchronized double biceps with wife Brooke.

That lack of income led to the domino effect of the power and services in his Venice, Southern California, apartment being switched off, and the reality was he was so broke he didn’t have a return flight ticket home to California. It gets worse. He married his Australian wife, Brooke, in December 2016, and a few weeks into his prep, she had to return Down Under for a family emergency. Once there she ran into an immigration dispute in which there was a snafu in approving her visa to the U.S., so she couldn’t return. And it gets even worse: Arriving in New York for the contest a few days before zero hour, Sergio contracted an infection and could literally not get out of a chair for two days. In apportioning nicknames, don’t call him “Lucky.” The bottom line was some relief came with the knowledge that the $12,000 first-place check would fill some of his needs.

The aforementioned is one of the craziest stories I’ve ever heard about battling contest prep hurdles, and Sergio, who is so refreshingly honest, opened up in a drama-laden interview in which he spoke his mind and revealed just what the hell was going on.

Click "NEXT PAGE" to continue >>

[pagebreak]

Per Bernal

THE BIG LEAP

“Winning the New York Pro was a quantum leap in my career. It was the major step in a journey I had started back in 2003 when, as an 18-year-old, I weighed 140 pounds at 6' and decided to take up bodybuilding. I won the Nationals weighing 240 pounds, so here I am in New York 18 months later, 20 pounds heavier and the leanest I’ve ever been.

“It took me 14 years to get here, and it’s been a helluva journey with plenty of self-inflicted bumps. Mentally, I’ve always been unsure, sort of like the same little kid I had started out as. I was so nervous. I couldn’t get a pump, could barely eat, and was scared to talk to anyone backstage. I even left the hotel without my posing trunks and had my friends run back to get them since the competitors were already doing their routines onstage. It was simply a train-wreck ride toward victory.”

Per Bernal

VALIDATION

“I feel this was validation to everyone else that I had not only arrived but that I’m also here to do more than place at shows and be an average pro bodybuilder or someone who is feeding off the notion that I’m only just my dad’s son. I’m here to not only win pro shows but also to win an Olympia one day. While this win was validation to people in general, it is validation as well that I was right to be confident in myself. And in a topsy-turvy way it proved I had the guts to progress, during the worst contest prep of my life, when everything was falling apart.

“I had to hustle to get a flight to New York, and then Brooke having to remain in Australia just about did me in. I needed her next to me as I trained and prepared, but that wasn’t possible. That hit me hard, real hard. But even from 8,000 miles away she kept me going and on track. Then I had the infection, and I thought that torpedoed everything. When I stood alone with Jon onstage I just felt as if I had put every one of my eggs into the basket that was the New York Pro. Didn’t even have a return ticket to L.A. I thought I might have to do a Kai Greene and do some dancing in Times Square to get a ticket back home. I couldn’t have gambled any more on myself. So I’m now proud of what I achieved. All the sacrifices and trauma ended up being worth it.”

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[pagebreak]

Per Bernal

NAVIGATING THE CONTEST

“I’m quite a historian and there are just too many statistics of pros not winning their pro debut, that it’s difficult to ignore—I wanted to win, of course! Don’t get me wrong. It’s crazy I had to win to save my life and be able to afford an immigration lawyer to get my wife back. So it wasn’t until they brought us three [Morel, Delarosa, and himself] out at the end of pre-judging that I knew for sure I was in the hunt. Then at night they brought just Jon and me out for a comparison, and damn, was I ready.

“The Sergio who appeared at pre-judging and the one in the finals were two different men. I knew after pre-judging I was behind, so I wasn’t going to do the standard post-pre-judging thing: Eat a big burger and fill up on Gatorade. Instead, I didn’t eat or drink even a drop of water and had to put ChapStick on my teeth ’cause my lips kept sticking to my teeth. I could literally taste that win and knew after all I went through, I needed to prove to myself and other up-and-coming young bodybuilders that you can still compete against people with lucrative sponsors and fewer obstacles and still win. Everyone I went against had sponsors, a home, their spouses to go home to, while I didn’t have any of those things, and I couldn’t let stuff like that stop me. I just wanted to show everyone I don’t need any special treatment. Because even with my name I still had to swallow bullets like every other regular up-and-coming bodybuilder.”

Per Bernal

WHY ME?

Don’t say it too loud, but sometimes it’s hard to banish the thought that Sergio maybe thrives on punishment. Like the masochist who loves a cold shower, so he takes a warm one. Hear him.

“Maybe I rise above adversity when things get tough. Maybe my New York experience was just one giant motivator for me. I’ve always been very pessimistic. I always say things like, ‘This always happens to me,’ ‘Bad things only happen to me,’ and ‘Why me?!’ But you know, I’m starting to alter that mindset. One reason is that I had conversations with Flex Lewis, Shawn Rhoden, and Phil Heath. They all told me stories that they’d endured that were way worse than mine. It’s crazy because all three represent what I hope to be one day, so their stories got through to me big time. It was the ultimate light at the end of the tunnel for me: It woke me up. And it’s weird I now am glad all those things happened. It’s like if they didn’t, I wouldn’t have worked as hard as I did. We all lift as if it’s life or death, but this time around I literally trained and did cardio like my life and my wife’s were at stake. So now that I went through that and so many other things people will never know— I’m the most confident I’ve ever been in my life.”

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[pagebreak]

Per Bernal

NEXT STEP: COLUMBUS

“I decided to not do the 2017 Mr. Olympia. Instead, I need to get my wife back, get a sponsor, and get my personal life back together. I would rather work on resetting my future than keep dieting just to get a third callout at the Olympia. I know my place. It would be a historical first for me to step on the same stage as my father, plus it would be a first for my mom: being the only woman to have a husband and child compete on that stage. But to go in not at my best would be a slap in her face and my father’s. I got the invite to the Arnold Classic in Columbus from Arnold himself, so that is my next show. I’m going to clean my body out, let my system heal from this horribly rough prep, get my rock, Brooke, back, and have a good off-season to get even bigger, and even maybe shock myself and a few other pros in Columbus.

“Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to keep mine and Chris Aceto’s [his contest prep coach] winning streak going. We’re two-for-two, but poor Chris needs a break from my emotional breakdowns. I wouldn’t have been even half the man/competitor I was in New York, if it weren’t for him. He’s more than a dietician to me. I have so many anxieties and issues, and he knows how to deal with me and kept me confident and motivated.”

Courtesy of Weider Health & Fitness

Making his Olympia debut with his dad, Sergio, in 1984.

THE PATIENT IS CURED

“I’ve changed a lot of my thinking since the New York Pro. I keep thinking I got this far with zero help without truly believing 100% in myself. I look at it as if I were on my deathbed for the past 13 years, struggling, not performing at my best, and I still beat guys while I was suffering. And now they found a cure for me. I’m getting out of the hospital a new man. I appreciate life so much more and also now feel unstoppable. I have a winner’s ring on my finger, reminding me I don’t have bad luck. The world isn’t out to get me.

“In fact, I have great luck because not that many people have done what I’ve done. I’m now more grateful for the bad things that happened to me ’cause I see life in a whole new light now and know now that all those horrible things that have happened to me since my first show were all for a reason— and a gateway to a new beginning.”

Postscript: As of Aug. 5, Sergio is sponsored by Old School Labs Supplements, Angry Mills Sinister Labs, Pro Tan, and Body by Eddie Inc. He also has his own clothing line named after his father’s signature pose, VictoryClothing.com. Things are looking up!

FLEX

from Bodybuilding Feed https://www.flexonline.com/ifbb/trials-sergio via http://www.rssmix.com/

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