Do many people board older horses or retirees at LAEC? For some reason, I was under the impression that it was more common for active competition horses to board there. I might be mistaken though.
I have wondered if many people are moving their horses to other programs/boarding barns in the greater SoCal area.
I have found this to be true as well. They may not have had fancy horses back home, but theyâd been around horses and were comfortable and confident with them. People who havenât been around horses arenât necessarily comfortable around them and the horses know. A non-horse friend who went to vet school said that it was pretty obvious whoâd been around horses and who hadnât and that it was a bigger deal with the horses than many of the other animals.
This is pure ignorance. Iâm sorry but it is.
There is no great way to âget your paperwork in orderâ. Iâve know many that have tried. Thereâs crappy lawyers that are scamming these poor guys and their families out of thousands of dollars claiming to have in-roads with immigration. Then they go into the wind. What are the guys going to do? They canât go to the police.
Another example, Here in lovely dumpster fire Florida, theyâre setting traps and arresting people at their immigration meetings. So honest people that want to do the right path, are getting arrested when they show up. Itâs a honey trap. Iâm absolutely grossed out by all of it, but it seems like our country has just given up and accepted that bigotry and prejudice are just the new norm. How we got back to the 1800s in a matter of months, Iâll never know.
Iâd love to see all the legal people here lining up to do this work. Please show me what rock that theyâre hiding under. Newsflash⊠they do not exist. Not for the money. If they even bother show up, the work isnât consistent and I wouldnât trust most of them with a fruitfly.
But you keep telling yourself that to justify your vote. These are good people that are getting hurt bc of discrimination and a witch hunt. Any other group of people would have stood up and rioted and fought back. These are kind and hardworking people that we are treating like cattle. It is disgusting. How you can justify it⊠says more about you than them.
I live in FL too and this is the first Iâve seen or heard about the picking up at meetings out of the blue thing. I have heard of several who had warrants who were picked up at the meetings, which is absolutely understandable and Iâm ok with it,
But as far as the âpaperworkâ tons of people are in this country from other places, people have been doing it for years, and are legal.
It can be done.
I know some from South America who work at horse farms on 6 month visas. They stay their 6 months , go home and someone else ( usually another relative) comes for 6 months and they switch back and forth, for one example.
Itâs called a J-9 Visa. They are easy for larger operations to obtain. Itâs what most of the ski resorts use for the winter months. However, those are not easily attainable in Central America and Mexico, and even in South America, many of the kids that are coming up are already wealthy or privileged and this is looked at as a gap year or transition timeline between attending university and going home to get a real job.
The polo grooms get them, too, but this isnât what barns up here need. They need annual and consistent help, not seasonal. Also, J-9âs are usually interested in making good money or getting apprentice-level experience, not doing 20 stalls and landscaping for $15-20/hr.
As for the immigration traps, John Oliver did a whole segment about it on Last Week Tonight this past week and itâs been on the news. Asylum seekers and individuals looking to go the right path through the immigration courts are purposely being denied and then arrested immediately when they depart the courtroom. Itâs absolutely horrific.
I âlikedâ your post earlier because I did not have time to reply in detail to it, but now I do and you are 100% accurate. I responded several times to a post on a the thread âinteresting post on trainers doing lessâ about my own real world experiences on costs. Not even cost on employment but cost on everything else.
I mentioned on that other thread that people have been used to paying low boarding fees for years and years, but providers can no longer swallow that loss.
The reckoning is here. I saw a post last night on my local Facebook group that a barn. Owner posted that her long-term worker of eight years never showed up for work. I know the guy, lovely guy and letâs just say circumstances suggest thereâs a reason he didnât show up.She was asking for help from all of her borders to come take care of the horses.
Itâs not only the equine industry⊠we are used to paying low costs for foodâŠagriculture has benefited greatly from cheap labor including feed mills, meat packaging plants, field harvesting. The apples we love feeding our horses are in large part harvested by immigrant labor. What are WE actually willing to swallow because of costs? The food reckoning is here too.
I find it interesting that a starving horse, an abused horse is a rally cry. I am shocked that some people care less about the way immigrants are currently being treated but would be at the head of the tar and feather line if a horse or dog was treated this way.
Again, as I and others have posted throughout this thread, this is NOT easy for most immigrants from Mexico or other Central and South American countries. Actually, itâs almost impossible. Wait times are lifetimes. Your average immigrant barn worker cannot get the proper paperwork, yet they are here (yes, illegally) trying to provide for their families in the only way they know how. We, as a society, need a better solution to the problem of people who need work + jobs that need workers = legal pathways.
ICE has been detaining people who show up for their immigration court hearings, who show up for required biometrics appointments for affirmative immigration benefits applications, and who show up for USCIS interviews for affirmative benefits applications like green cards. As an immigration lawyer I now advise clients that there is a very real risk of detention even though they are eligible to apply for and receive the immigration benefit they seek. Many people who apply for green cards or changes of status fall out of status while they wait for their application to be decided because processing times are so long. While their application is pending they are considered in a âperiod of authorized stayâ but are still out of status. So, if an administration has decided to be punitive to the maximum extent of the law (and our immigration laws are extremely harsh) they can detain and deport people trying to apply for lawful status before their application gets a chance to be decided.
There also widely seems to be a misconception that ICE only detains people who are undocumented or who donât have work authorization. This is false and ICE has been increasingly detaining people regardless of what their immigration status is. Someone with work authorization can, and these days will, be detained by ICE if ICE runs into them (or âroving patrolsâ them) depending on what the basis for their work authorization is. Thatâs why you get the situation with the Maine police officer mentioned above-- he DID have work authorization. He was lawfully allowed to work in the US. But he simultaneously was out of status waiting for his immigration application to be adjudicated.
Laws are based on normative determinations that influence policy decisions. Itâs clear that the American labor market falls short of providing enough capable and qualified workers in the horse industry. Rather than blindly enforce laws for the sake of enforcing them (and say too bad so sad nothing we can do when the repercussions harm American businesses and industries) we should be advocating for laws that align with and fulfill American needs and values. Our 4.2% unemployment rate is not going to fill the void of needed workers in this and other industries.
The barns IME were not large at all. One in particular is quite small.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16KHH3zw6D/ - there is now a COTH article about it and the majority of commenters are clearly not familiar with US immigration policy.
Asking why an undocumented worker canât just get legal status is like asking why my dog doesnât know how to ride a bicycle. There is a slim chance it could be made to happen, but it would take an enormous amount of time, effort and expense with an uncertain outcome.
For everyone saying undocumented workers should get a visa, would you support creating a legal pathway for workers who have been here for letâs say 5 years with no criminal record and their employer vouching for them? If you want them to get papers, are you willing to concede perhaps there needs to be a way for them to be able to do this?
We have been at these immigration problems, legal and illegal, forever.
I think Reagan patched this up decades ago thru temporary amnesty programs.
I would say this go-round is going at this in especially troublesome, legally and ethically questionable ways.
The horse industry is being caught on this along with so many others.
Just caught the tail end of an NPR story from yesterday that said that DOGE cuts have resulted in the immediate (and I mean bums rush-style) termination of roughly one-fifth of current immigration judges. As if the system is not backlogged enough. And it blows my mind that ICEâs underhanded tactics outside the immigration courts is not common knowledge.
Immigration judges are DOJ employees and they are being told to dismiss cases of anyone here for 2 years or less so they can be immediately removed by ICE agents waiting outside their courtroom. The immigrants going to their hearings are in the country legally and cannot be removed while they have a pending case. As soon as the case is dismissed, their rights evaporate entirely. Itâs disgusting⊠and again, these are people taking all of the right steps to be here legally.
Heard that one too. Theyâre scheduling court dates as far out as 2029. And this is not new, the immigration courts were already wildly understaffed, contributing to the 10+ year process to âget legalâ.
Itâs disheartening to see that the actual facts of the problem are not making it to certain parts of the population, including how many legal residents are being detained in recent months. Like, how do you miss the countless stories reporting examples of exactly that happening?
And itâs infuriating that the guys feeding & cleaning & genuinely caring for and about our animals are the scapegoatsâ literally the hardest working people I know; folks that had a thing or two to teach me about horsemanship as I worked alongside them, and not the lazy spoon-fed congress that has been punting this issue to the sidelines for decades.
We are punishing the hardest workers in the entire country, the most âbootstrappiestâ of them all, for our mistakes. Itâs just wrong. And it may be the final nail of our industry. And congress wonât care. But you, me, the trainers, breeders, farriers, vets, feed stores, tack suppliers and yes, the grooms, stall muckers and hot walkers, probably will.
âwhy donât people just immigrate legally?â
It presumes that people are actively choosing to NOT pursue that path. As if most migrants are faced with two equally easy options- enter legally or illegally- and they actively choose the latter.
As a consequence, it implies that migrants lack some kind of innate moral code if they keep choosing unlawful border crossing. Even if you ignore someoneâs complete ignorance on how immigration functions (thatâs another story,) itâs revealing a prejudice.
Because there are two possible explanations why someone who is highly motivated to work in the US would immigrate illegally. One, the legal avenues are so arduous and confusing and lengthy that people arenât incentivized to take them. Or two, thereâs something inherent in these individuals that makes them inclined to break the law.
This is why it drives me crazy when people whine about migrants exploiting asylum or stealing SSNs to work here. We could create the circumstances where these behaviors arenât necessary! We could open legal options for immigration! But many people are so committed to their primitive ideas of punishment that theyâll never see it.
Plus those immigrants with stolen SSN numbers are paying into a system that is very unlikely will benefit them in the future. The money is being withheld and sent to Social Security to pay for people who are collecting NOW. Who could be elderly, or unable to work due to medical conditions, or minors.
My mother benefited from Social Security after her father died when she was 5. She found him dead on the couch. He was buried on her older brotherâs birthday (who also received SS money for his care. Their mother collected & spent it on their needs). That money was used for her education, clothes, food, etc. So I get pretty prickly when people try to withhold these benefits from people who are entitled to receive them - no matter what their age.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Agree. I also thought this was common knowledge. Also that the Dreamers (DACA) have been informed, or emphatically reminded, that they have no protected status. Many Dreamers have graduated college and are working professionals. The ones whoâve been interviewed by my local network news have never even been to Mexico. But now theyâre in danger of being apprehended and deported.
Nearly every day up here I cross paths with people who insist that âonly criminalsâ are being apprehended and deported. What world are they living in?
Thatâs what they were promised would happen when they voted, so thatâs what theyâre continuing to hold on to.
Plus confirmation-biased news sources and a lot of money being poured into making people distrust conventional media. And there are a lot of people who only believe or understand something once it happens to them or someone they know.
COTH posted the article on FB 2 hours ago and it already has over 500 comments. Yikes.
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