Diego Reyna walked up 40 flights of stairs and recorded a 43-second video that said the building wouldn't exist without immigrants.
"It was a symbolic act," Reyna said yesterday in a telephone interview. "When you say everyone in my family, my teachers, my children yet to be born are criminals and rapists, it is time to take a proactive effort."
In the video he said Mexicans performed everything from drywall to concrete finishing on the project. During his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Trump has been criticized after Trump for saying Mexican immigrants are bringing crime and drugs to the US and are "rapists."
Reyna, 30, said in a separate Facebook post that Mexicans didn't steal or rape but just did the best work they possibly could.
"Your tower here in Vancouver is premium quality, and we were a crucial part of it, not just Mexicans but immigrants as a whole, like your ancestors were," he said.
"The insults you have said about us have not changed our work ethics."
They took an elevator 28 floors and climbed the remaining 40 floors by stairs. Reyna said Trump's comments condemned all Mexicans. "I would like him not to generalize against Mexico," Reyna said.
The Holborn Group of Companies, the Vancouver developer behind the project, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment yesterday.
This isn't the first time the building has been at the center of a Trump backlash.
In December, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson sent a letter urging the developer to drop Trump's name from the tower, citing a petition signed by more than 50,000 people asking that the US businessman's name be removed from the tower following the Republican hopeful's call to ban Muslims from entering the United States. Reyna said there are also Muslims working on the site.
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