White House ballroom architect speaks out against Trump immigration policies

Shalom Baranes, a Libyan refugee and chief architect for President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, described the president’s immigration policies as “heartbreaking” in a recent interview, The New York Times reported Saturday.

“What’s happening now is heartbreaking,” Baranes said of the Trump administration’s immigration policy in an interview last week, his first since accepting the role to head Trump’s ballroom project last year, the Times reported. “I do hope there’s a realization at some point that this country depends on immigration. We have to normalize our policies.”

Baranes was selected to head the ballroom’s construction last December after Trump had cut ties with the previous architect he had first tasked with the project.

At $400 million, Trump’s ballroom project is a proposed 90,000 square-foot addition to the White House that required the demolition of the East Wing. The project began behind schedule and was reportedly designed in a “hurried process,” with the East Wing’s demolition so controversial that the Treasury Department instructed staff not to share photos of its destruction.

The Times noted that Baranes – who arrived in the United States from Libya at 6 years old as a refugee – “would likely not be admitted into the United States under the Trump administration restrictions of today,” perhaps giving reason for his blunt remarks on the administration’s immigration policy.