Not good.
The article says that horses got left tied up to the wall or on a walker or whatever as the barn help got dragged away.
16 Likes
So disgusting what is happening in this country. Add this to the one million reasons I am happy to be retired but I feel for all my brethren in the industry. I really only had two grooms over my career as I lucked in to two really great people that stayed with me throughout but I worked alongside people of all ethnicities and backgrounds and know how valuable all of them are to the industry.
57 Likes
I hope horsemen have some legal recourse in revenge.
I mean, if an ICE officer forces someone to leave a racehorse loose or tied with no one to care for it and something happens to the horse… that’s people’s livelihood.
22 Likes
If the ICE officers are not worried about what they’re doing to the humans involved, I can’t imagine they will care too much about the horses.
69 Likes
Yep it is just the beginning…
16 Likes
I have emailed my Senators and Congress people about this , as well as other matters. I hope many others will do so as well, especially those in Kentucky where the State has much to lose.
What I think it may take is some direct lobbying by some wealthy race horse owners and breeders to make the government realize they are going to destroy an industry, the sort of lobbying that resulted in the raids having been scaled back on farms and hotels.
ETA which has now been reversed? Oh for god’s sake…
16 Likes
It certainly crossed my mind that they did not raid Saratoga when everybody was there for the Belmont, since those would be the sort of rich horse owners who might have some pull with politicians.
Heaven forbid that those people might be inconvenienced in any way.
34 Likes
2 Likes
I was just discussing this possibility the other day with someone.
1 Like
I have been really disgusted with how law enforcement has treated protesters and journalists. The video that showed up on my Facebook this morning was showing the mounted unit pushing people out of the way. One protester looked like he or she was trying to scurry out of the way of the horses and then an officer shot him/her with a rubber bullet. 
There was nothing I saw in the video that suggested that protester was a threat other then being a terrified person in the wrong location. Not to mention, if they had missed hitting the protester, they probably would have hit a police horse.
Trying to find teenagers/young adults that are willing to muck paddocks or help out on a farm is not easy. Most show up once, get paid and never come back.
What happens if those racehorses run out of water because there is no one there to fill water buckets?
I wonder if they are planning on targeting more racetracks? Was this just a one time event? Why that particular track?
22 Likes
Please, (figuratively) jump up and down and shout, make your feelings known to your politicians. We must participate.
13 Likes
ICE had already raided at least 1 bush track in the Delta Downs area a few months ago so this should not have been unexpected.
The workers are in the US illegally and the ICE agents are only doing their jobs. The same with the police trying to disperse crowds at the protest some of which became violent. Since we don’t know the full circumstances surrounding the use of the police horses to disperse the crowd making judgement calls is IMO unwarranted.
It has been shown that the increase in illegal migrants is putting a strain on public services in some areas such as health care, housing and public schools. For those who think that illegal immigrants should be allowed to say in the US, how do you want to pay for the additional public services that they will require?
It has been documented that some of the illegal immigrants are criminals but how do you sift through those that are willing to work but do not have a criminal record?
This is much more of a complicated situation than just a singular ICE raid at a race track.
10 Likes
From today’s WaPo (couldn’t open & read article posted by OP - so some of this may be a repeat):
12 Likes
This conversation is undoubtedly going to be closed if we steer it in a direction of people’s opinions on the immigration situation.
Regardless of whether or not this raid was “expected,” when you are dealing with live animals, you can’t just say things like “get off the horse and let it loose” like what was allegedly done.
It’s no different than if they were removing workers from a hospital, a school, a daycare, a nursing home, etc. You can’t leave dependent living beings behind without their caretakers. Justified raid or not, there has to be some consideration for the situation.
44 Likes
But ICE still has to do its job and cannot risk the loss of a suspected illegal immigrant. At the previous raid some individuals were able to escape by riding the horses out of the area.
I don’t know Delta Downs well, but the other nearby tracks have a mix of workers in the barns and not all of them are immigrants. (I know people who race horses in the area and work at nearby tracks.) The post is indicating that most or all workers were removed and there was no one to take care of horses but we do not know if that was the case.
The article includes reports that horses were left unattended, tied to walls, set loose on the track in tack, and left walking inside walkers for hours while ICE raided the facility. Non-detained people were also unable to access the horses to provide care, creating a “major concern” for the wellbeing of the horses.
The first hand account is that no one was allowed in or out. It does not paint a picture of non-immigrants going about the business of caring for horses while suspected illegal immigrants were psychically? identified and detained. The place was shut down and swept.
38 Likes
Politics aside, I think a lot of the blame lies on the employers. No different than the trainers not paying their help and getting hung out to dry by the government for doing so. Responsibility to hire legal paperwork employees lies with the employer and what we are seeing is people that brushed off that responsibility and have been allowed to get away with it for years.
I have been following some of the agricultural-world raids and it seems like many places were audited by the Federal Government months ago (like before DT even took office) to check their employee paperwork, payroll etc. It seems that anomaly’s were found during those audits: like falsified work documents and what we are seeing today, in some cases, is follow up to those audits (again, that were conducted under the previous administration!)
What most people don’t understand is that there are third party companies that any farm, horse trainer, agricultural entity can hire labor through and that third party is the one that is supposed to vet all the paperwork and ensure the visas are lined up to eliminate the employer having the manage that nightmare. The issue with some of these third parties is they are not actually doing what they are paid to do… like ensure the documents provided are not forged. Employers don’t do their due-diligence because they are paying the third party to do that work. But at the end of the day, the third party is not on the hook when the federal government audits an employer. It happens every day in any type of farm employment sector and I believe that much of what is being seen today is the consequences of that
I certainly do not want to see any hard working person rounded up and sent back home. Sadly, our American food supply depends on many of these people to keep cheap grocery prices.
With that being said; I also believe that hiring illegal labor to pay them cheap wages under the table to maximize a trainers profits, or a farms profits is like modern day slave labor. These are people working their asses off for often very wealthy employers and their customers (in horse racings case, millionaire and billionaire owner clients) at the bottom of the food chain for pennies. There are also a lot of trainers who are struggling to make ends meet as well which leads to additional pressure to hire cheap labor. Often with no benefits (those that forge documents are often in the tax bracket and paid minimum wage but they still are not paid fairly for the back breaking work and long hours).
I don’t blame anyone for wanting to come to our great country and make a living. But I stand firm that it should be done the right way and employers need to be held accountable for ensuring employees with visa documentation are legit. While it is shocking to see the amount of raids being conducted it should be even more shocking the Americans that amount of illegal people being employed in this country, in many cases intentionally to skirt the system.
We need to do better as a country at enforcing documents, visas, and holding employers accountable. When a precedent is set, it forces people to start doing things right, even if it is painful in the beginning.
I think it also needs to be reminded that coming here not through a port of entry and/or forging documents to be here is a criminal offense and it needs to be treated as such. We as a country need to be better at holding people accountable for such actions
10 Likes
Oh I don’t know. I feel like they could find the money somewhere. Maybe like how they found money for a superfluous parade?
And if they were “just doing their job” it could have been done professionally
58 Likes
For the workers who get a paycheck (vs. cash under the table), they are paying about 30% of their wages to the Social Security Admin, without ever getting it back cuz they don’t have a legit Soc Sec #. The rest of us benefit from that!
40 Likes
But again, why is it the American taxpayers responsibility to pay for the healthcare and education of illegals who think they can come here as they please? And not for a 250 year anniversary of the men and women who keep this country safe so we can all sleep at night?
I believe that if you want the benefits of being a legal immigrant in American or an American citizen; you have a responsibility to do it the right way, like millions of others have done and continue to do.
5 Likes
