I watched a documentary about the American Apparel clothing line over the weekend (I feel dumber for having watched it), and whadaya know. The company's former owner, Dov Charney, recalled Barack Obama's 2009 ICE raids in LA that forced him to fire 1,600 employees.
Clothing company American Apparel said Thursday it is terminating 1,600 employees at its Los Angeles operations after a government investigation into workers' immigration status.
The federal government has recently shifted its attention in immigration probes to make employers the primary target of immigration raids. In July, Homeland Security released a list of 652 businesses nationwide that will receive audits of their work force.
The workers were given 30 days to 60 days to produce additional documents proving their eligibility. Of the 1,800 workers identified, 1,600 were deemed to be unauthorized to work. The agency wasn't able to verify the status of 200 others. [Emphasis added]
During his Presidential Campaign, Barack Obama promised immigration reform. He touted a plan to bring immigrants “out of the shadows” through legalization. In reality, the new administration has embraced the same goals as the Bush administration, albeit under the guise of “gentler” and “more civil” techniques. Because of these policies, approximately 1,800 Los Angeles garment workers, nearly all Latino immigrants, are losing their jobs in the largest immigration raid in U.S. history. On October 2, in response to a 17-month ICE investigation, American Apparel began firing more than a quarter of its workforce. [Emphasis added]
And Obama's raids didn't just go after American Apparel. Here are some of the headlines from 2016:
Politico: Obama Kicks Off Family Deportation Raids
National Immigration Law Center: Obama Ramps Up Family Separations
The Conversation: Immigrants Under Obama Share Stories of Terror
American Immigration Council: Central American Mothers Targeted in Immigration Raid
Rolling Stone: Barack Obama Defends DACA Amid Mass Deportations
Democrats have conveniently forgotten about the Obama raids, retconning history to excuse their guy, even as they portray President Trump as Adolf Hitler incarnate for trying to clean up the immigration rolls.
Oh, and don't forget: Barack Obama kept kids in cages. The photo above is from 2014. Even the hacks at PolitiFact had to call out Joe Biden for claiming that never happened:
But for Biden to say that Obama’s administration did not put people in cages is inaccurate. Obama and Biden in 2014 saw an influx of children arriving at the border without a parent or guardian, and reporting from 2014 by the Arizona Republic referred to a chain-link enclosure holding children as "cages." A former Homeland Security secretary under the Obama administration in interviews has acknowledged that some have described as "cages" the enclosures used during Obama’s tenure.
The Arizona Republic reported that the children were "housed behind 18-foot-high chain-link fences topped with razor wire." In some cases, they didn't have enough food and water.
Where was the outrage and activists when Obama & then Biden had “immigrants” & kids locked up in cages?
— Clyp Keeper (@DGrayTexas45) July 1, 2025
“Immigrants” were stacked on top of each other & forced to sleep on the floor.
The ONLY Democrat that said anything was Henry Cuellar & Biden’s DOJ charged him… pic.twitter.com/KSuo9MwDPB
Now, the Left is weeping and gnashing their teeth over Trump essentially doing the same thing Obama did. Heck, even Obama is trying to claim the moral high ground. In a social media post last month, he complained that immigrants are being "demonized" and added, "Thirteen years ago, my administration acted to protect young people who were American in every single way but one: on paper."
I'm sorry, but the over-the-top hypocrisy is ridiculous.
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