Soros-backed DA targets hotels hiring homeless migrants to fill job amid striking union workers

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Some California hotels are accused of hiring migrants from Skid Row as union workers went on strike, according to the Los Angeles district attorney's office, prompting an investigation from a Soros-backed DA. 

Skid Row is a 54-block area in Downtown Los Angeles and is one of the largest stable populations of homeless people in the United States and has been known for its condensed homeless population since at least the 1930s.

On Monday, Soros-backed DA George Gascón said he would be investigating whether some unionized hotels in the Santa Monica and Westchester area engaged in possible exploitative practices, stating, "We are going to make sure this is investigated thoroughly. It will be a fair and impartial investigation." 

"If there are violations of the law, there will be severe consequences for this. We want to make sure that our community understands there will be no tolerance for the exploitation of refugees," Gascón said. 

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A homeless man walks through Los Angeles skid row in 2022.  (Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)

Gascón also he is "concerned about potential wage theft and violations of child labor law," the LA Times reported. 

The announcement followed allegations raised by the Los Angeles Times that numerous hotels in the LA area were employing migrants after 15,000 unionized employees began striking at 60 hotels. It went on to accuse hotels of not providing breaks or properly documenting hours. 

Employers have reportedly scrambled to fill those positions vacated by striking employees, allegedly going so far as recruiting migrants from Skid Row, according to the LA Times. 

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A leader at the union organizing strikes, Unite Here Local 11, blasted hotels for allegedly undermining their organized protests.  

"I can’t believe they are forcing these people, who are so desperate, to cross the picket line," Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, told the LA Times. "Instead of addressing L.A.’s housing crisis, the hotel industry prefers to exploit the unhoused as strikebreakers to avoid paying their own workers enough to afford housing themselves."

Under a part of the Immigration and Nationality Act, migrants with a refugee or asylum status are allowed to seek employment and employers are not allowed to discriminate against those candidates. 

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