Maybe it was Senator Tim Kaine’s tweet “The real Trump Hotel” with photos of migrants behind cages, but the domain TrumpHotels.org was about to get trolled. On June 20, the domain was registered and quickly turned into a parody website calling out the heavily criticized treatment of immigrants under the president’s zero-tolerance immigration policy.
Needless to say, the website’s accommodations are anything but plush and it would most certainly have a dismal Yelp rating. Satirizing Trump’s cruel illegal immigration tactics, which up until last week was responsible for separating thousands of families, the website touts “amenities as solid walls, raised beds, and sheets that need washing.”
Visitors to the website have the opportunity to take a tour of the chainlink facilities and read up on “Thoughts From Our Manager.” In case you hadn’t guessed, that section highlights some of the things Trump has said regarding immigration.
“They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting.”
Remember that little nugget from his presidential candidacy announcement?
The well-done satire quickly caught on with the internet and was just as quickly blocked from linking to on Twitter.
Twitter said that it was a “glitch” by a third party that it uses to stop potential spam domains that was to blame for preventing people from sharing the website link. As of this post, people can share the link via Twitter.
While Trump may boast about his gold-plated luxury hotels around the world, the detention centers on the U.S. Mexican border have been less than hospitable towards migrants, with many caged and forced to sleep on the floor. While President Trump did sign into action last week an executive order to end the separation of migrant children from their parents, more than 2,000 children have yet to be reunited with their families.
So who is behind this Trump Hotels parody site, surely a left-leaning liberal, right? Nope, it was actually started by Loren Collins, a 40-year-old lawyer who says he identifies as a libertarian/conservative. Collins said that he was fed up with Trump’s policies and said that he got the idea after seeing a friend use the #TrumpHotels hashtag in describing the immigrant detention centers. (No word if that friend was Senator Tim Kaine.)
“I thought that it’d make good satire to create a mock hotel site for the hashtag, and I was surprised to discover that they’d never bought TrumpHotels.org, even though the .com is their main site,” confessed Collins. “So I bought it for $8 last Wednesday, paid another $8 to protect my privacy a little bit, and threw together a WordPress page that I uploaded last Thursday afternoon.”
TrumpHotels isn’t even the only Trump-related domain that Collins owns. He also can claim rights to Trump-Memorial.com, though the only thing you’ll find there is the GIF below:
This, of course, is hardly the first time a website has been dedicated to lampooning the Trump presidency. You may recall such URLs as Donald Trump Sucks,” “Im Being Sued By The Donald,” and the classic “Ivanka Poker Champion.” TrumpHotels.org makes it clear at the bottom that it’s clearly for entertainment purposes and it remains up — at least for now anyway.