The New York lawyer caught on video threatening to call immigration authorities on restaurant workers who were speaking Spanish finally apologized Tuesday as the dust settled from the swift fall-out against him.
“To the people I insulted, I apologize,” Aaron Schlossberg wrote in a message posted to Twitter and LinkedIn. Schlossberg, who assumed that the workers were undocumented immigrants solely because they spoke Spanish, added that, “While people should be able to express themselves freely, they should do so calmly and respectfully. What the video did not convey is the real me. I am not a racist.”
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In the video, Schlossberg — whose identity was ferreted out by internet sleuths — can be seen at Fresh Kitchen restaurant in Midtown Manhattan denouncing workers who spoke Spanish when they “should be speaking English.”
“It’s America!” Schlossberg shrieked. “I will be following up and my guess is they’re not documented, so my next call is to ICE to have each one of them kicked out of my country. If they have the balls to come here and live off of my money, I pay for their welfare.”
Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federal benefits.
Schlossberg has a history of spewing xenophobic tirades at strangers. In a video obtained by VICE News from April 29, 2017, Schlossberg can be seen wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat and accosting protesters at Trump Tower. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Schlossberg told a protester who said he was from the Netherlands. “You should just say ‘Thank you for letting me in your motherfucking country.’”
In another video from October 2016, obtained by civil rights activist Shaun King, Schlossberg tells a stranger on the street, “I’m a citizen here. You’re not. You’re an ugly fucking foreigner, so fuck you.”
The man in the video, identified as Willie Morris on YouTube, posted a vlog about the encounter at the time and said he’s from Massachusetts, displaying his American passport to prove it.
Schlossberg’s small private law firm was kicked out of its offices and hit by a flurry of one-star Yelp reviews after his latest rant.
The firm could not be reached for comment.
