Bourdain, Trump Feud Heats Up: CNN Star Blasts ‘The Donald’ On Immigration Stance [Video]

The Bourdain, Trump feud is heating up after it has been reported that the CNN star blasted “The Donald” for his stance on immigration. Bourdain believes a Donald Trump presidency would spell disaster for the restaurant industry, Time magazine reports. Anthony Bourdain — who is a chef, author, and television personality — has made it clear that he is not a fan of Donald Trump and his reason for not supporting the presidential candidate for the Republican party is simple: Bourdain believes that if Donald Trump becomes president, every restaurant in the country will have to close its doors.

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Bourdain now joins the long list of celebrities such as Chef José Andrés, actor Antonio Banderas and singer Ricky Martin, who defend the work done by undocumented immigrants in the United States and expresses disapproval toward the anti-immigrant discourse used by billionaire businessman Donald Trump during his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.

The so-called “bad boy” of the restaurant industry strongly criticized Trump’s comments made earlier this year regarding Mexican immigrants. As Think Progress pointed out, Bourdain had some harsh words for Trump during a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s StandUp with Pete Dominick. To those unfamiliar with Trump’s insensitive remarks, the following text is an excerpt from what he said back in July.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Trump’s comments sparked an immediate wave of criticism from Americans who do not share the same views as him, including those in the immigrant community. During the interview, Bourdain referred to undocumented immigrants as the “backbone of the industry,” and said that in the majority restaurants he’s worked in, “the person who’d been there the longest, who took the time to show me how it’s done was always Mexican or Central American.”

“I rolled out of a prestigious culinary institute and went to work in real restaurants. I walked into restaurants and always, the person who had been there the longest, who took the time to show me how it was done, was always Mexican or Central American. The backbone of the industry — meaning most of the people in my experience cooking, preparing your food. Twenty of those years in this business I was an employer, I was a manager employer.”

Bourdain said he understood “the value” of the work of undocumented workers and the business would be nothing without them. When asked about what he thought of the work ethic of undocumented immigrants, he claimed immigrant workers were often more willing to “just start at the bottom” than American workers were.

He added that in his many years of industry experience, he’s seen very few job applications by Americans willing to begin at low-level positions.

“Never in any of those years… did any American-born kid walk into my restaurant and say, ‘I’d like a job as a night porter, or a dishwasher, even a prep cook,'” Bourdain was quoted as saying.

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Two months after launching his candidacy, Trump announced his immigration reform plan. In a six-page report posted on his website, the real estate tycoon said if he was elected, he would change the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to deny birthright citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants, build a wall across the southern border, and deport all illegal immigrants within 18 months.

[Photo by Aaron Davidson/Getty Images Entertainment]