A man says he hung a Mexican flag over a hotel being built in Canada in protest of an American businessman whose run for president is sparking controversy all over the world.
Facebook user Diego Saul Reyna posted a picture on Saturday of himself and the red, white and green Mexican flag high above Vancouver Harbour, saying he put it atop the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver as a message to the tower's outspoken namesake, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
"Mr. Trump, we did our best work, your tower here in Vancouver is premium quality, and we were a crucial part of it, not just Mexicans but immigrants as a whole," Reyna wrote in a post on Saturday that has over 5,000 reactions and shares. "The insults you have said about us, have not changed our work ethic."
Neither the tower's developer, the Holborn Group, nor the Trump Organization, immediately provided responses to requests for comment from NBC.
Trump's comments about Mexican immigrants have proven divisive throughout the presidential campaign, which began with a speech in June in which he called Mexican immigrants in the U.S. rapists and criminals.
Asked last week what he thought of Trump's position on bargaining over nuclear weapons, President Barack Obama said that on his travels around the world, leaders frequently ask him what is going on with the U.S. election.
"Even in those countries that are used to a carnival atmosphere in their own politics want sobriety and clarity when it comes to U.S. elections," Obama said on Friday.
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The flag was apparently taken down by Sunday, according to The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which interviewed Reyna.
"I put a Mexican flag on the roof of the Trump Tower in Vancouver, just to show that he is benefiting from us and that we are working hard on his projects and that we are not all criminals," the Mexican-Canadian told the CBC.
He didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but he told Fusion he is a construction worker but wasn't working on the tower, and had to blend in with others on-site by carrying steel more than 40 flights up, wanting to show solidarity with his “Mexican brothers who worked on that building."
The 63-story tower is the first Trump development in Vancouver, on Canada's west coast, according to a 2013 press release. It was expected to be completed this summer.
Trump calls the tower "a unique, winning proposition – totally magnificent" in an undated quote on the tower's website.
