The story behind Donald Trump's Polish workers

 By 
Colin Daileda
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

For the first half-hour of Thursday's Republican presidential debate, all Marco Rubio seemed to want to talk about was Donald Trump's "Polish workers."

"People can look it up. I'm sure people are googling it right now," the Florida senator said. "Google, 'Trump Polish workers.' You'll see.'"

So we did.

It turns out that Rubio was referring to a decades-old lawsuit against Trump for hiring undocumented Polish demolition workers. At the time, Trump said that he did not know the workers were undocumented.

Rubio questioned whether his rival was being hypocritical on immigration, given Trump's harsh stance on undocumented immigrants. He's said he wants to build a massive wall along the United States's southern border to keep immigrants from coming into the country.

"If he builds the wall the way he built Trump Towers, he'll be using illegal immigrant labor to do it," Rubio said.

The Polish workers allegedly worked 12-hour shifts with no days off, and were often paid $5 or less an hour.

The workers eventually sued Trump, and the lawsuit dragged on for years.

Trump denied knowing the workers were undocumented, and claimed that the contractor constructing the building should be the one being scrutinized.

Recently, Trump has dismissed the lawsuit by saying it happened years ago, and he did so again when Rubio brought it up.

"I guess there's a statute of limitation on lies," Rubio said.

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