News and notes from Reston (tm).

Friday, March 7, 2008

The hands that built Reston's Fake Downtown (tm)

Some undocumented workers got shafted while building one of the new shiny high-rises in Reston's Fake Downtown.

About a dozen immigrant drywallers — some illegal — were never paid for their work last summer at a Reston Town Center project by their employer, Salvador Blanco, an unlicensed labor broker, according to contractors on the job.

Among them was Flor and her husband, Juan Carlos, both illegal immigrants from El Salvador. The couple, who asked to be identified by their first names only because they feared deportation, said when they weren’t paid for a month’s work, their family back home had to sell what little property they had to cover the medical bills for their sickly 4-year-old daughter.

The workers eventually received compensation totaling about $35,000 from C.J. Coakley Co., the subcontractor that hired Blanco, and Hitt Construction, the general contractor, after carpenters union officials alerted the contractors and property owner, Boston Properties, of the problem.
Sounds like they were lucky. But according to the sensitive, thoughtful readers of the Fair-N-Balanced(tm) Washington Examiner, the unlucky ones are.. well, the rest of us.
llegal immigrants working with an illegal labor broker; using forged documents; not paying taxes and hiding to avoid deportation -- supposedly don't get paid. Well, BOO-HOO! Judging by their definite pattern of dishonesty, why should anyone believe them?
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Ahh, isn't that to bad, they had to sell off property in their country. If they have property why are they here??? That is the chance you take when you are here illegally. Even your own people mess you over and try to exploit you, do yourselves a favor and go home, so these kinds of things won't happen to you. And you are always crying about some sick kid, the only kids we care about are the ones that may never see their parents again because they are fighting a WAR. GET REAL
If you think that's unsympathetic, imagine if they'd been caught loitering at the Elden Street 7-11.

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