A lot of the people riding and caring for the horses are not anyone’s “employee”, in the legal/tax sense. They are gig workers. The horses and trainers are at the track temporarily.
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Yep.
Throughout my long journey through the convoluted and unnecessarily complicated faulty immigration system, it became clear that there must be an unofficial handbook passed out to officers - as I heard the same phrases repeated over and over again. Examples: (yelling while pounding on the counter for emphasis) “What makes YOU think I should allow YOU into MY country??!!!” and in a quieter, angry tone… "Congratulations (drops paperwork on counter in disgust) - you have just stolen a job from a fine American citizen… "
They wanted to get a rise out of you. They baited. They provoked. I learned to just nod and smile and say yes, sir/ma’am…. The fact that my job did not exist before I came and would not exist if I left was of no concern to them. On the rare occurrence when I dealt with an officer who was professional, polite and not deliberately abrasive, I thanked them for doing a good job. They were always surprised by that… and thanked me.
So I am a white Canadian woman who encountered all this unnecessary shit - and English is my first language. It was still very difficult at times and my anxiety level was through the roof - but never EVER let them see you sweat. Nod. Smile. Do NOT rise to the bait. People out there whining that it is so easy to become a citizen (that is waaaaaaaay down the chain of this procedure that can stretch over many years) are completely clueless.
Here is an interesting tidbit… not long after I first arrived here 25 years ago and had settled in for the next year (when I would have to renew that original work visa again), I got a big, creamy envelope in the mail from Blaine, WA which is the biggest border crossing town north of here (and well known on assorted immigration aid websites for being one of the most difficult places/officers). It contained an intro letter that included my new SSN and personal details about my job and visa. It was full of pamphlets and other letters about how to get fake green cards, US passports, better work visas etc. including contact numbers to achieve this.
All that personal info was only known to my employer, the immigration lawyer who was a godsend, and USCIS. Neither my employer or the lawyer are in Blaine and had no interest in any of this nefarious stuff.
In Blaine, the major source of employment is the border crossing at the Peace Arch. I panicked and got rid of that thing as fast as I could and wanted it nowhere near me. In retrospect, I should have hung onto it and had the lawyer present it to USCIS… but after everything I had already been through to that point (and worse to come 
), I was not willing to take a chance of any such connections torpedoing the process. So who was running said business on the side and dispensing that info? Thinks (deliberate typo) that make you go hmmmmm… 
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No question on the mentally unstable part, though it was illness, not a disorder. The second part sounds unfair, however, based on what I know of George III.
Among other among other things, per Wikipedia, “George never took a mistress . . . and the couple enjoyed a happy marriage until his mental illness struck.”
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If law enforcement acted like professional federal agents you wouldn’t see this level of outrage. There are clear holes in the hiring and training process, major issues with mistakes and safety violations and they simply are not treating the US citizens and documented residents and their property in the professional and legally sound manner that federal agents historically have. Have you see the many videos of ICE agents who clearly aren’t handling their firearms safely? That’s terrifying. Or the videos of agents who cannot run or do simple physical tasks? Or who are putting bystanders in danger by, for example, using PIT maneuvers on cars where there is no need to. Or in this case not letting people take care of the horses.
I’m old and I know the INS existed for decades before ICE and I saw them in action a few times. They did not look like an untrained bag of hammers while trying to arrest people. The INS never make this volume of administrative and paperwork mistakes. And yet previously INS was perfectly competent in arresting and deporting people.
People really hate incompetence and stupidity, especially when it puts them in danger and impacts their livelihood and that’s what the outrage is about.
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Or, you know, someone who actually believes in America’s founding principles rather than (a theoretical person) living by “I got mine, why should I worry about anyone else?“
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One of my relatives (3rd cousin 6 times removed), Robert Charles Battiscombe (1752 - 1839), was apothecary to King George III (and the rest of the royal family) through his illness.
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They apparently scooped up some Irish citizens in Boston recently. There are still a fair number of Irish in the Boston area who come over on a tourist visa and stay.
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Why is that? What would happen?
Let me ask this: Why didn’t they simply arrest the trainer/employer if this is such a huge problem. It is the employers who enable it. They are guilty of crimes that are more serious than the civil offense of the workers; it can be a felony even.
As for “why they don’t do it legally” I encourage anyone asking that to show genuine curiosity about what that process is. It’s also very true that ICE has detained and deported people who were completely legal with all their paperwork. That’s because they were easy to find.
They’ve also detained and deported citizens. I don’t carry proof of citizenship on me and even if I did it is not hard to disappear my document.
Fun fact: the median wealth and the median income for people who own farms is higher than the US as a whole. I don’t say that as a bad thing, but the image of farm owners just scraping by and somehow more noble than the people who work for them is … an interesting bit of mythology. And no one here should believe that’s true for people who own racehorses.
Most of us in the horse industry have been customers of someone who knowingly used illegally hired labor. We’re complicit. And I don’t think any of us can honestly believe that those workers strongarmed their employers into hiring them to work long hours at physically challenging jobs for low pay.
I do my own horse labor. I know very few horsemen who properly hire their workers under W-2 and ensure they have workman’s comp and health insurance and paid vacations, even when they hire people who could submit a legal I-9.
Heck, even many of our international clinicians have come in on tourist visas and illegally been paid.
It’s remarkable to read this article and hear the indignation of the trainers who think that they should be above the law, with some sort of wink-and-a-nod carveout for them, rather than an honest attempt to follow the law or change it for everyone’s benefit.
For whatever it’s worth, it’s nearly impossible to get legal status to come to the US to do “unskilled labor” and people who do farm and livestock work are considered “unskilled” even though we all understand that there are many skills involved. As a matter of both culture and policy, in America we don’t value “unskilled” labor or a lot of people who work very hard in difficult conditions. For years we’ve traded paying full living wages for a chance at a better life for themselves or their kids, of some of the most resourceful and hardest working people on the planet, for people with and without legal permission to work in the US.
And as for public safety, while I have not experienced immigrants as dangerous, I certainly have experienced loose 2 year old stallions as dangerous. The way these raids are being conducted is directly harmful to public safety in multiple dimensions. If your concern is that they are working, it is a simple matter to stop that employment in a much calmer and much less dangerous manner, and also without causing harm to their fully legal coworkers or bystanders.
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Assuming that the employer is paying them as W-2 employees, the employer should be paying a total of 12.4% of the wage as social security tax, 1.45% as medicare tax, plus the appropriate approximation of their income taxes. Depending on how much you are paid, this can approach 30% especially on the margin (Roughly the first $15k being exempt), so I think it’s a fair approximation, even if not all to SSA. It’s certainly true that most immigrant labor is obligated to pay in to SSA without being eligible for benefits.
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How are things now at Delta Downs? Did a bunch of US citizens show up to do the work?
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I agree that 30% is a not unreasonable estmate of the taxes taken out (payroll taxes plus income taxes).
I agree that they probably get no benefit from from the Social Security and Medicae tax (payroll taxes) taken out.
But they do get as much (or as little) benefit from the income taxes as anoyone else paying income taxes.
Here’s a link to all the info on how to legally become a US Citizen: https://www.usa.gov/naturalization
The 10 step process, worth noting that there are fees along the way in this process: https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learn-about-citizenship/10-steps-to-naturalization
Here’s the eligibility tool: https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship-resource-center/learn-about-citizenship/naturalization-eligibility-tool
A link to a video explaining what to expect from the naturalization interview: https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learn-about-citizenship/the-naturalization-interview-and-test
And the 2008 Civics Practice Test that is still linked on the US gov’t website so I’m going to hazard a guess it pretty closely mirrors the test used today: https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/civics-practice-test-2008
EDIT: Doesn’t sound that easy to me - you have to have the money to pay the fees meaning you have to have a source of income, you have to have English proficiency and it is not the easiest language to learn if it isn’t your native tongue from my understanding, etc. Shared this just to make it easier if anyone asking that question actually does have a shred of genuine curiosity though it’s quite easy to plug “process to become a US Citizen” into a search engine and find it all right there on the gov’t websites.
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When has this administration had time to audit anything? Remember the chainsaw video. They care not one bit about facts.
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Did you read my post or just skim it for whatever information you wanted to retain? the audits were done months ago, like before DT even took office which means they were performed by Biden’s administration. therefore a lot of the workplace arrests going on right now are a result of the findings of those audits.
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I think with all this talk about fake SSN and employers paying taxes on their employees and the employees not ever getting a return on it etc etc it bears mentioning that that is assuming that the employer isn’t just paying them under the table all along, which in my area seems to the standard method of operation.
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True but those who are paying those who are here as undocumented under the table are more than likely also paying citizens under the table. People who don’t want to pay “lawfully” don’t pay anyone “lawfully”
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Exactly. Heck, my first high school gig was at a restaurant and I got paid under the table. There are plenty of barns in the area that do the same but it’s primarily college kids.
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I recently saw a news item about Chinese coming into FL from the Bahamas. I laughed and laughed and laughed. Not at the poor souls that are doing what they can to build a better life but, at the folks that are so enraged over “illegals”. I wonder what type of work these new residents will be looking for and where they will settle.
That’s NOT what is happening though. They are sending people who are not even from El Salvador to El Salvador without any due process. There are multiple court cases about this.
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I also know someone who has an adopted child, now a young adult. This young adult is a US citizen, but is of Hispanic origin, and has a clean record. Their parents have advised them to carry their birth certificate, be very careful, and hope that they are not detained or questioned, or if they are, that the ICE agent would have enough ethics not to ‘vanish’ the documented proof of citizenship. It is a shameful day in this country when an innocent US citizen has to carry papers and still worry if they could be arrested and detained for nothing.
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