Vincent Scardina supported Donald Trump’s tough stance on immigration at the ballot box. But that decision came back to bite the roofing boss when ICE detained a third of his workforce.
The six men, all from Nicaragua, were pulled over in a work truck on May 27 while heading to a job—and carted off to jail.
According to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, deputies helped transport the men to a local detention facility “for deportation.”
Scardina, who runs a small roofing business in Florida’s Lower Keys, cannot believe it. “It’s quite a shock. You get to know these guys, you become their friends—not just an employer but a friend,” he told NBC6, visibly emotional.
Adding to Scardina’s annoyance, the men had valid work permits and pending asylum applications, according to their attorney Regilucia Smith. “They are legally here,” she said. “Valid work permit, not even close to expired… again, no criminal records—not here, not in Nicaragua.”
ICE’s nationwide raids came after White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was reported by the Wall Street Journal to have told immigration officials in May to target anyone in the country illegally.
A swoop on a Home Depot last Friday in a predominantly Latino neighborhood of Los Angeles sparked widespread anti-ICE demonstrations and outbursts of rioting in the city, prompting President Donald Trump to commandeer the National Guard and deploy Marines against the wishes of local leaders.
Scardina says he voted for Trump and still supports many of the former president’s policies, but this isn’t what he signed up for. “Buyer’s remorse? I don’t know, a little bit.”
The detained men represented a third of his total staff—devastating in a small labor pool like Key West. “We’re not able…to just replace people as easily as, say, a big city, [with] very limited people to pull from, and then you would have to train them, and that takes sometimes years,” he said.
Even more jarring, three of the workers have now been transferred to detention centers in Texas and California. The rest remain in local custody, as their lawyer fights to have them released.
Scardina isn’t alone. He says other contractors in the area are being hit hard too. “I know of one landscaper that lost nine or 10 of his whole crew he had and he’s just totally out of business all of a sudden, just like that.”
Still, his colleague, Virgil Scardina, says they count themselves lucky. “I get to go home and hug my kid,” he said. “These guys don’t. And they don’t deserve that.”
ICE did not immediately respond to comment from the Daily Beast.
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