Ticking Time Bomb

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. This is Red Pill, America. This Labor Day weekend, Red Pill, America is offering 40% off an annual entry-level backstage membership, where you can get ad free access to our entire back-cab log of episodes. Go to redpilldemarika.com and click the link on the homepage and enter the phrase Labor Day at checkout. Join the fanbam and help us save America one story at a time. This episode was originally broadcast on November 29, 2018. You know those expressions you hear so often that you don't even question their truth? We've all heard them before. If you eat a lot of food and then go swimming, you'll get cramps. Cracking your knuckles can cause arthritis. We only use 10% of our brain. You know Joe Scarborough is a Republican. Or maybe it's Joe Scarborough only uses 10% of his brain. Anyway, there are those sound bites we hear throughout life that get repeated over and over and over again. So often so that they just become the truth, whether they are or not.

1:06I've been a bit obsessed with one of these sayings lately. It goes a little something like this. So you spend a year basically going undercover and doing a lot of jobs that I think you could argue a lot of Americans wouldn't do. Immigrant workers do the jobs Americans refuse to do. Immigrants are a way to basically take care of those jobs that Americans do not want. Because they take jobs that Americans largely are not doing. What Americans really want to do those jobs? Hispanics and Africans taking what are pretty tough, dirty, rough jobs because others don't want them. Once it's put on your radar, you hear it all the time. But is it true? Do illegal immigrants really just do the jobs Americans won't do? I'm Patrick Coralchi. And I'm Adriana Cortez. And this is Red Pill, America, a storytelling show. This is not another talk show covering the day's news. We are all about telling stories. Stories Hollywood doesn't want you to hear.

2:08Stories the media mocks. Stories about everyday Americans at the globalistic more. You could think of Red Pill, America as audio documentaries and we promise only one thing. The truth. Welcome to Red Pill, America. So the idea for this episode came a few years back when Kelly Osborne made a comment on the view. If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilet Donald Trump? Oh, that's not. In the sense that you know what I mean, when I'm saying that there's more jobs to be in LA, they always... Kelly made the comment during the 2016 election and it caused a minor uproar. She apologized, but it made me realize I heard a version of that comment many, many times before. So much so that I began to take it for granted.

3:11But then I began to think about it. Is this true? Do illegal immigrants really do the jobs Americans won't do? I started a little digging to find the answer and it led me to some guys from Long Island. What I learned was eye-opening because what happened to them could easily happen to just about anyone. Suffolk County is not a household name to people who haven't lived in New York. About 80 miles east of Manhattan in Long Island, the area advertises itself as the leading agricultural county in New York state with a farming community that has survived hundreds of years of development. But as unfamiliar as the name may be to most, the county includes one of the most well-known regions in the world, the Hamptons, the vacation stomping ground for the rich and famous. Like most affluent neighborhoods throughout the country, the Havns are separated from the Habnots by a kind of barrier and in the Hamptons that barrier is New York 27, a highway that

4:16connects Brooklyn to the eastern tip of Long Island. The Havns lives south of that road. Tom Woodell grew up in an area just north of the highway in a city called Manerville. A stocky medium-height Long Islander of Scottish descent, Tom is 57, but with the head of hair of a teenager. Although he lived within walking distance of the world to do, he was anything but. I come from a family of 10, five girls, five boys. Wow. Well, we come from a farm stand family, actually. From the time Tom was born until they're passing, his mother and father ran a farm stand in West Babylon, a town just north of the highway and west of the Hamptons. His mom and dad would buy fruits and vegetables from local farmers and sold them through the stand. Like many working class families, they would put their kids to work. By the time Tom was old enough to carry a box, he was part of the farm stand crew. Tom got his first paycheck when he caught wind that the father of a friend needed some

5:28help doing landscaping out in the Hamptons. At 17, he called the guy and got the job. It wasn't long until Tom broke out on his own. He'd become a small business owner, a big step for a guy that came from a working class family of 10, selling tomatoes from the age he could walk. He slowly built his crew at one point up to a team of 25 guys working on a multi-million dollar estates. I did everything. I did everything right from the ground up. They'd come into all the foundations and we'd do everything else. Most of Tom's crew was made up of young guys, including George Overbeck, who would

6:28handle a specific part of the construction job. I was like a semi-specialized in the theatre so I did high-end work. We're talking about a million dollar homes and 30, 40, 60,000 dollars, you know, sheet of roofs or or sliding. The two became good friends, not surprising given their upbringing. Both were long island natives, both from humble beginnings. This is where I came from. I was six. My sister was four. My father had a heart attack and died. The only one that raised me was my mother. At the time she was just an aide, basically working to take care of people and stuff of that nature. But she didn't have a lot of money. We basically left off the system in a sense. My whole entire life. I remember getting free lunch. And you know, just hard times for the beginning to the end.

7:31George grew up in Hampton Bay's. A village just west of the popular luxury vacation spot Southampton, in a building that he said more resembled a chicken coop than an apartment complex. His family lived kind of a lifestyle where you'd be eating good on the second day of the month, but by the third, things started getting tight again. George never had his own room. He swept on the couch in the living room, which doubled as the entrance room and the TV room. Their kitchen had a bar that was made out of a door, and that was their table. You get the picture. As a kid, George would walk down to the local grocery store called King Cullen right before closing time. I was a gentleman, a manager at King Cullen in Hampton Bay's when I was a kid. And as you knew, that how poor we were, we knew we didn't have any money. And I used to go there like eight o'clock at night when the store was about to shut. And you know, he would give me bags and groceries and stuff. So I would go collect all the cards and sometimes I'd sweep the floors or whatever. But he would give me bags and groceries and I would take them home.

8:33And you know, when he got old enough at the ripe old age of 12, he started looking for a job. George lived down the road from a burger joint in Hampton Bay's called Slow Jax. It looks kind of like a throwback to the days when you drive up and a waitress would walk up to your car and take your order. So when I was 12, I went over there and I got a job cleaning the parking lot before school. And then during the summer times, I would work cleaning the parking lot. And then when I became 14, I started working like a manager golf course where she has in the back and started like a counter guy. You know, I never got the cook of course, but... Getting like this grows you up quick. So at 16, George decided it was time to get a real job. He dropped out of school and moved to a town called Riverhead, which was on the other side of Long Island and started working for a landscaping company, basically cutting the lawns of a state. By the time he was 18, his younger sister started dating a guy whose father owned a cedar roofing company and was looking for guys to work.

9:36He offered George a job and that was his entry into the construction business. He later started working for Tom Widel, but by the year 2000, for his New Year's resolution, he decided to start his own roofing company. As the year 2001 came around, both Tom and George, guys who started with nothing, who'd work manual labor jobs at the age when they should have been riding a bike, had hustled and scratched their way out of poverty to become successful small business owners. You know, I had many guys working for me, I had a good sized company. I worked for a lot of prestigious builders out here on the East End of Long Island, from East Hampton, the British Hampton, the South Hampton. And you know, I just, you know, I was doing quite a few jobs, you know, probably banging out a house a month or something. And you know, everything was possible and everybody was doing the right thing. You know, I was happy about my company and everything was great.

10:37Tom was in a similar place. And I was busy. And my guys working, everything was good. For a lot of equipment, everything was rolling good. My business was growing. My guys were working hard. Everybody was happy, you know. The jobs were going good. They were living the American dream, but what happened next changed all that forever. It's time to treat yourself to the licorice guy. You guys should know by now that I love licorice and it doesn't get any better than the delicious gourmet licorice made by the licorice guy. They have a great selection of flavors to choose from, like red, blue raspberry, black, and green apple just to name a few. The freshness of the licorice guy is unlike anything you've ever tasted in licorice before. Seriously, if you haven't tried licorice from the licorice guy, then you ain't living your life right. It's time to dump the store-bought licorice that's so hard that it can break a tooth and get yourself the soft, fresh stuff from the licorice guy.

11:37What I also love about the licorice guy is that it's an American family-owned business. It's made right here in the beautiful U.S. of A. We are big proponents of buying American and supporting American workers. Right now, red pill America listeners get 15% off when you enter RPA 15 at checkout. At licoriceguy.com and enter RPA 15 at checkout. That's licoriceguy.com. Treat yourself and those you love and taste the difference at licoriceguy.com. Welcome back to Red Pill America. In the classic big screen thrillers, the villain often uses a pretty sick tactic to control his enemy. He secretly plants a ticking time bomb that threatens innocent lives. His twisted revenge-seeking monster then sends a warning note that finds its way to the desk of a barely sober cop. We watch as this flawed hero goes from location to location trying frantically to piece together the puzzle.

12:37Eventually leading him to a crowded train station at rush hour. People roam the terminal, clueless to the potential terror attack, as the now battered hero sees a beat-up leather briefcase through the crowd off in the distance. As the bomb ticks dangerously closer to zero, this disheviled out of breath officer shubs people out of the way in a mad dash against time. The hero first fumbles, but ends up entering the right code to unlock the latch, and then carefully, hand trembling, reaches into the bag to pull out the green wire just in the nick of time. In the end, countless lives are saved. This act of terrorism is demented, but at least the villain gives his would-be victims a chance to survive. Back in the real world, many think a kind of ticking time bomb has been planted throughout America. Put there by men with power, looking to acquire even more of it. But unlike on the big screen, no clue is sent to the hero to find the bomb. There is no puzzle to solve that saves the day.

13:38The villain actually wants the bomb to go off. And when it does, it destroys American lives. This with Tom Woodell said happened to him. The ticking time bomb went off for Tom about a week before September 11, 2001. At the time, he was about halfway through a three-year job on an estate in Sagaponic, a village in Southampton. He remembers that day well. Yeah, it was in the morning. My guys had just started showing up. We usually had a little meat and spot down by the barn, but you usually came to first when you came down the driveway. We don't met at the barn. I just burst my guys off. They were doing that thing, working on various parts of the house.

14:41And I guess about two hours after we started, the builder came. The name was Rich. Then he had the homeowner with him. He didn't have a happy face on him. I was like, what's going on, Rich? So we have a problem, Tom. I said, what's up? I said, I got a problem with the home. She doesn't like how much he's paying for these guys. Rich explained that the homeowner was going to replace Tom's guys with her own guys. Tom was being fired. He pleaded for them to reconsider. He spent about a quarter of a million dollars on equipment to build this company and had 25 guys who thought they had worked for the next 18 months. I said, Rich, man, I've been working on this job for a year and a half, this is still over a year and a half, let the go on this project. You can't just let me go like that. I said, how long have we been together? I always said, does nothing I can do about this Tom. The homeowner wants it. You know, she wants to bring home guys. There's nothing I can do about it Tom. It was it.

15:42That was the end of my, you know, I didn't know what the say to the guy, I really didn't know what the say to him. I was dumbfounded. I was dumbfounded. I thought I'd get a couple of days now to get my equipment out of there because like I said, I've been on the job for a year and a half. I had a lot of equipment over there. And I got there the next day to take my stuff off the job, be grudgingly and low and behold this 20 guys on the job. I had a lot of old teenos and they're all using my equipment. It was the most insulting thing I'd ever seen in my life. I couldn't believe it. Not only were they stealing my job, but they were using my equipment. I was just, you know, I was dumbfounded. I just started grabbing my equipment. You know, and they would jump them off of it as I was grabbing my stuff.

16:42I was pissed. I was really mad. But I got my equipment and I put my toe between my legs and my left and I just tried to carry on, you know. I tried to keep my guys working. I tried to get all the jobs. I got a couple of little ones here and there, but nothing that could sustain 25 guys working. The firing started a spiral for Tom. I tried to destroy struggles for a long time trying to find work. I couldn't support my guys. I had 25 guys working for me at the time. I was feeding their families, paying their taxes, doing the right thing. I was trying to do the right thing and then boom, all of a sudden that hit. I'm struggling. I'm coming out each day every day trying to find work, trying to keep me going, trying to keep my guys going. Over a couple of years, I just kept losing guys and losing guys. It got to the point where I had nobody left. It was just me struggling, trying to make it, trying to live. I lost half the equipment. It ruined my entire life.

17:45It really destroyed my life. Tom saw no warning signs that the bomb was about to go off. He did slowly notice some Spanish-speaking workers on some of the jobs, but he really didn't pay any attention to it and why shitty of. He was busy. His guys were busy. But over the course of a few years after losing that big job, he started to put two and two together. Every day he'd drive out east looking for work, passing a 7-11 at the entry point to Southampton. I'm looking at that 7-11. I've passed it every day. It's 200 guys, 300 guys lined up there every day, up and down the sidewalks all looking for work. That answered my question, where all my work went to. These guys were stealing my work. They hire these guys for really cheap. They pay no comp. They pay no liability. I had to pay all that stuff. These guys being illegal aliens. And there were a lot of them. Suffolk County had been dealing with an influx of illegal immigrants for a few years. In the late 90s, when about 1500 Mexicans made their way to Farmingville, a tiny village

18:49in Suffolk County, it sent the small community into chaos. Neighbors began seeing 20 and 30 illegal immigrants occupying a single home and aggregating at a local 7-11 looking for work. People residenced complaint of harassment and unruly behavior by these new invaders. Then an illegal immigrant killed a single mother while driving drunk, disappearing after making bail. But it wasn't until a few of these day laborers were beaten up by some outsiders that it began to attract the attention of the media. The people of Farmingville were successful in blocking a city sanction hiring hall for the illegal immigrants. But the problem only seemed to spread to other parts of Suffolk County. Paul Forthmuller, a local at the time, explained why so many illegal immigrants were flocking to the area.

19:55After first finding agricultural and landscaping work, the illegal immigrants eventually infiltrated other areas, painting, carpentry, and general construction. They began to change the economics of the town in other ways too. Already an expensive place to live, the day laborers made it even more expensive. When word of work in the richest enclave in America started to spread, illegal immigrants came out in droves, setting up hubs. First they'd make enough money to rent a house, then bring in 15, 20, 30 guys to live there, each paying say $50 a week. If a landlord had the choice between a small family paying say $2000 a month in rent, and 20 guys paying much, much more than that, which way do you think the landlord is going to go? It's not rocket science to figure out the answer. Locals say the illegal immigrants drove up rental prices in the area enough so that a single working class family now unable to find work couldn't afford the rent. It wasn't long before the illegal immigrants started to enter other areas of construction.

20:55That's when the bomb hit George. I guess that I specialized in theaters so I did high end work. And just slowly, but surely, every time I put a bit on a job with another builder, they would turn around and they would try to bunch my fries and use them as a wedge. This free, cheap labor. The builder obviously wasn't free, but they definitely worked for cheaper, much cheaper. It was hard for me to compete with that. And as slowly as I went from 15 to 10, it just sticks to four to two guys, you know, there was no way to keep up, there was no way to compete. It was impossible to compete because the army was vast and I was just a small company. So I basically started just slowly losing everything and when I hit rock bottom, you know, I contributed to one factor, one factor only.

21:56You know, the fact of free labor, cheap labor, maybe not free, but cheap labor. Like many of the local workers, in early 2006, George left the state hoping to find construction work elsewhere. He went down south, it only lasted two months. So to make one story short, I came back and it turns out the tendency was no different. And then New York or Long Island, you know, everywhere you go, it was the same story. The so-called day laborers were already in other states, but what was most troubling was that Tom and George were experiencing this work shortage in one of the biggest housing booms in history. House prices increased from 2000 to the summer of 2006 more than they did in the previous two decades. It wasn't as if there was some downturn in the economy that was forcing demand for cheaper wages. They also weren't working in a town that was particularly cash poor. In fact, it was the exact opposite of that. BusinessInsider.com listed Sagaponic. That was the town that Tom and his crew lost their jobs to day laborers.

22:56That town was listed as the number one wealthiest zip code in America, with a median house selling at 8.5 million. The wealthiest zip code in the wealthiest country in the history of the world during the biggest economic boom in an industry had to find cheaper illegal labor. Illegal immigration has changed the face of working class America, literally, and nowhere is that better illustrated than in construction. California is the canary in the coal mine for how illegal immigration will affect the American working class throughout the country. In 1980, the percentage of Latinos working in construction in Los Angeles County was 24%. By 2015, that number had almost tripled to 70% Latino. An incredible shift in the workforce, and it's largely attributed to illegal immigration. These are the kinds of jobs that have historically lifted Americans out of poverty, and this wasn't the only shift in the industry.

23:57From the early 1970s to 2016, American construction workers' wages have declined by almost 20%. For all of the talk that immigration creates prosperity in America, the Golden State completely debunks that myth. Even with industries like Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and aerospace titans like SpaceX, California is now the poverty capital of the US. Los Angeles has seen a 75% surge in homelessness over the past 6 years. San Francisco even has maps to avoid the feces of the homeless, and reliable Republican enclaves like Orange County have been faced with this problem as well, with residents of Irvine, California recently organizing to block the erection of tent cities for the homeless in their town. What this massive influx of illegal immigration has done is increase the wealth gap, providing near-slave labor to the world's richest populations, all while driving down wages, and in some cities, closing off a major pathway out of poverty for America's working class.

25:00This is what Tom Waddell and George Overbeck faced when they came back together in 2006. Around that time, Tom Waddell protested a chemical fertilizer plant and successfully shut it down. So when George and him started talking about what could be done to deal with all the illegal immigrants lining up at the Southampton 7-11 stealing their work, it was obvious what they should do. Tom, like most of us, was taught that if you have any gripe with the government, you should peacefully protest. And this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I mean, these day-laborers were here illegally, right? It was illegal to hire them too, right?

26:02The government was doing nothing about the problem, it was a slam dunk. So they grabbed the signs and headed out to the 7-11. But when they got out to protest, they learned a new lesson. This Labor Day weekend, Red Pill, America is offering 40% off an annual entry-level backstage membership, where you can get ad free access to our entire back-cab log of episodes. Go to redpilldemarica.com and click the link on the homepage and enter the phrase Labor Day at checkout. Join the fanbam and help us save America one story at a time. Welcome back to Red Pill, America. So illegal day-laborers were stealing the construction jobs of Tom Waddell and his American colleagues. They went out to the 7-11 where these day-laborers lined up for work. But when they got out to protest, they learned a new lesson. Instead of questioning the illegal immigrants lined up on the sidewalks in the hundreds,

27:06the cops turned their focus on the protesters. All because we were standing on a sidewalk, they have one, two, three. How many police cars are here because we were standing on the same sidewalk that all these illegal aliens are standing on? All right, you know what? I tried to be nice. Guess what? Turn the camera down. Turn the arrest. They arrested an American citizen from swapping across the street. And as soon as we started protesting, the police showed up. They started taking out a license plate numbers down. They found out what we were protesting about. They took out license numbers down. They ran background checks on everybody that was protesting. They really made me mad that they were doing that. And maybe you guys are standing on the sidewalks still and everybody to work. They don't even belong here. Not one of them could produce the identification if you tried. And then it makes me mad. I see these guys breaking the law. Here I am trying to obey the law, trying to do the right thing, trying to keep my guys working, trying to keep their families fed. And here's my government telling me, shout out, that you can't do nothing about it.

28:09These guys are here. That's it. Get used to it. It really made me mad. That's when I was determined. After that, I said that I'm not going to stop. I guess I got to stay out here until people recognize what's going on here. Tom and George became fixtures at that Southampton 7-11. The place was such a hot spot that the 7-11 received an award for selling the most cups of coffee in the United States. When Tom in particular was out there so often, he became kind of a poster child for illegal immigration in the area. He took the fight to the businesses and politicians supporting the day laborers. So many illegal immigrants were lined up on the street looking for work that the city tried something provocative. They started to make a drive through hiring location on city owned property. The whole situation was not created in Southampton. It's not going to be settled on a street corner in Southampton. It's a war of logic. And being in anybody else. And the man I took the clearest problem off.

29:10I mean, we would not be here. I don't want to be here. These people don't want to be here. Just take pictures of the contract that's picking up instead of bringing building them a hiring hall. So, anyway, it turns out that the field next to 7-11, they were going to go and turn around and have a hiring hall. And they were going to make a place where they were going to cut a curb. And they were going to put your gear driveway and a couple trailers. And basically contractors like me and all these other guys could walk in and say, oh, I'll take four guys or I'll take three guys or whatever and drive in and drive out like a McDonald's. I guess some type of a work McDonald's. Tom remembers that day as well. They tried to build it. They tried to dig out the holes and get the driveway built. One day me and my buddy George pulled up and they were digging it. I stepped right out of the truck and it's the hole. Now, never forget this. They were cutting the curb in the road and they were putting the four of these to you in the hiring hall area. And my buddy jumped out of my car and I mean, we didn't even stop the park.

30:14He jumped out of the car and he jumped in the hole and there was this machine that's back home and the back home driver turns around and spins around to get another piece of dirt. And there's my buddy Tommy in the hole. And he's like, you're done here. You're done. You're not cutting this. This is not going to happen. You're it's over. You're not doing it. The site ended up getting shut down from misuse of city property. The hiring hall never opened. But Tom was arrested in the process. It was one of many times. I had a real bad time over there. I had a real bad time. They arrested me like four times on the word of Elyl aliens just saying that I was standing too close to them. They didn't like my flag. My flag would brush up against them as they were walking by and they'd call the cops on me and I'm the arrested. And they would arrest me. It really, it's sealed my resolve. I was every time they did that, it just made me have to stay longer. I'm not going to go anywhere. I'm not going to be out here every day. I had to count up change some mornings to make it out there with gas.

31:17It cost me around $7 a day to make it there and back on gas. Sometimes I'm just coast. Tom and George did win the battle. They shut down the hiring hall. But they are losing the war. The illegal immigrants in Suffolk County are now firmly planted in the community. Basically, nothing has changed. They don't have a location to do that thing except on the sides of the road like they normally do and they'll always do. But the thing that has changed is, you know, there's a couple of long ways, my friend. They're not cutting the grass. They're telling that guy over there to cut the grass. You know what I'm saying? Nothing has changed except that they don't have the steady location. But they don't even use it anymore because the bosses are them. With guys like Tom and George and millions of others losing their jobs to these day laborers, how did this phrase that illegal immigrants do the jobs Americans won't do? I'm so widely repeated. Well the day laborers had their own idea and they shared it with Tom.

32:18They laughed in my face. They told me, get the hell out of here. George Bush already gave us your country. Nothing you can do about it. That's what the illegal told me. Get the hell out of here. George Bush already gave us the country. George W. Bush no doubt played a role in spreading the message. He was one of the leaders that popularized the phrase. Out of common sense and fairness, our laws should allow willing workers to enter our country and fill jobs that Americans are not filling. Our jobs American citizens are not filling. If an American employer is offering a job that American citizens are not willing to take. That you can do work others aren't doing. Jobs Americans are not doing. For jobs Americans won't do and work her legally for jobs Americans aren't doing. That you cannot fully enforce the border so long as people are trying to sneak in this country to do jobs Americans aren't doing. But the phrase has been used widely by both political parties, possibly more so by Democrats. We are told time and time again, almost like an advertising slogan attempting to sell

33:20us something we don't need that illegal immigrants only do the jobs Americans won't do. But the facts tell a different story. We can actually look to find the occupations where there are no Americans working, right? So it turns out that you can't find them. As Dr. Steve Camarota, Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies, he actually tested this argument by looking at occupational data captured by the federal government. So if you were to look total at the total number of occupations identified by the Department of Congress there are 472 of them. Only six are majority immigrant. Even in those six, 46% of the workers are still US-born. So Mades and Housekeepers in America, you might think, well gosh, that must be all foreign born. It's not it. It's 51% native born. And there are 850,000 native born Americans who do that job.

34:2258% of taxi drivers and chauffeurs are US-born, 63% of butchers and meat processors, 64% of ground maintenance workers and 73% of janitors are US-born. So the vast majority of janitors are US-born. But we still say things like that's a job Americans won't do. This is why the claim that illegal immigrants only do the jobs Americans won't do is so sinister. Our politicians have the data. They know the truth. Tom and George got their start in the working class through manual labor, working in farming, keeping parking lots, cutting lawns, trimming hedges, then getting a break and working their way up in the construction business to become small business owners, only to have it all taken away by the guys just doing the jobs Americans won't do. Our leaders, especially the Democrats, continue to allow this ticking time bomb of cheap labor to enter the country because it gives them more power, especially in the near future when the new voting population comes of age.

35:24The change in public school enrollment in the Hampton area highlights this point. In Bridgeampton, public school enrollment went from 6.8% Hispanic in 2000 to 41% in 2017. In Eastampton, it went from 18.5% to 51% in Hampton Bayes where George grew up, it went from 16.1% Hispanic to 55% Hispanic. In one Southampton school, north of the highway in the land of the Habnots, the school enrollment went from 10.5% Hispanic in 2000 to 71% in 2017. And this is just one of many, many towns across America going through the same invasion of illegal immigrants. Suffolk County sensed the serious problem and in 2016 voted for a Republican for President for the first time since George H.W. Bush. Tom wasn't surprised when it went Trump's way.

36:37Tom stopped protesting three days after Trump was elected. Things have not been easy for Tom since the days of his protesting. He's had a hard time finding work ever since and his living arrangements aren't steady. George was forced out of the roofing business but his painting work is picked up since Trump's election. And he's a guy that you can say puts his money where his mouth is. His wife was a Polish immigrant to the United States. They had a son. Then her visa expired. George decided he needed to practice what he preached. He sent his wife and son back to Europe to enter the country legally.

37:39But because she overstayed her visa by a month, they couldn't immigrate to the United States for five years. So George packed up and moved to Europe with his wife where they had two more boys eventually coming back to the United States after five years. I voted for Trump. You know, and we stopped basically doing what we were doing because of the fact is that we felt like when we voted for Trump that we'd have a leader that was going to take care of this. But there's so many of structure to this. So many people on the wrong side of this coin that are stopping and affecting us, the American people. And I'm going to tell you, you know, I'm angry still about it. And I'm about to go back out because I don't want to come complacent and say, you know, well, I voted for Trump and that's all I'm going to do. I'm not going to be like that.

38:41Which brings us back to the question, do illegal immigrants just do the jobs Americans won't do? The answer is clearly no. But if this slogan, because that's what it is, a slogan, is repeated over and over and over again like a well-funded advertising campaign, it can infect even the strongest minds. The biggest problem is that you have some great, wonderful people coming in from Mexico that are working the crops, they work in cutting lawns, they're doing a lot of jobs. And I'm not sure that a lot of Americans are going to take those jobs. And that's the dichotomy. That's the big problem because you have a lot of great people coming in doing a lot of work. And I'm not so sure that a lot of other people are going to be doing that work. Redfield America is an I heart radio original podcast. It's owned and produced by Patrick Coralchi and me, Adriana Cortez of Informed Ventures. Now you can get ad free access to our entire archive of episodes by becoming a backstage

39:43subscriber. To subscribe, visit redfieldamerica.com and click join in the top menu. Thanks for listening.