Every one of my serious violent crimes clients were home grown. My undocumented clients were charged with driving without a license or DUI. Despite the furor, IME, undocumented people do everything they can to avoid committing the sorts of crimes that are being touted as the reason for these crackdowns. The few that did, were here specifically for that purpose (the drug delivery) and were more than willing to go back home via ICE. The horse industry, farming and meat slaughter industries are going to be hurting very soon which will translate into higher costs for all of us, notwithstanding the trauma inflicted on the people doing that work. So very sad to see happening and feel so helpless.
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Or I might say, the people willing and able to do the work who donât have better options is shrinking.
The thing about horse girls is, they tend to want their own horses. And this takes way more money than you can earn grooming or mucking. Even In-N-Out or Costco pays better.
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Yep. When I was younger I managed a barn for minimum wage. I now own a barn (paid for by non-barn wages) and I am paying for the abuse my body took during those years.
Itâs hard work. It is skilled labor. And there arenât as many people as there used to be who are willing to do it.
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Excellent post, @Alterration, thank you.
America has always touted itself as the âgreatest country on earthâ, the place where everyone (supposedly) no matter what, or where, they came from, can not only succeed, but be anything they want.
The term, the American Dream, and the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty are known throughout the world - for many the US is the âpromised landâ.
How can you blame anyone living in poverty, in war torn countries, in dangerous circumstances, who wants better for themselves and for their children, and who are willing to take extraordinary measures and face hardships to get here - and hope, with hard work, that they can achieve that much ballyhooed âAmerican Dreamâ. How can you BLAME them?
And then how can anyone with an ounce of empathy want them to be treated with such cruelty?
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Because. Some have decided that THEY are the enemy. When we are a country of immigrants. Seeking a better life. For ages. So some highlight the outliers the immigrants who are criminals to justify the cruelty. While living looking asksnce at our home grown problems. Itâs gross.
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My French exchange student was here August of 2015 through May of 2016. She came with that impression, that America was the greatest place and the land of opportunity and freedom.
She had a VERY different view by the time she went home.
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They have been suckered into believing that itâs brown people (okâŠimmigrants) that are the reason for their misery. They are an easy target. They stick out, they have few resources, and they canât fight back.
Iâm not saying that things were perfect before - but this is beyond the pale.
Again, to keep it equine related, these folks keep our barns and racetracks running. They deserve our help.
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Right out of the playbook of regimes past and presentâŠ
We in the broad horse culture of this country owe a tremendous amount of thanks to the immigrants who make training barns, boarding barns, horse show facilities, race tracks, rodeos possible. Instead these people are being kicked in the teeth, hauled off and detained in terrible conditions equivalent to a livestock kill pen.
If we collectively wonât tolerate abuse of horses, how in the world can we tolerate abuse of fellow humans?..and the irony: mass deportations do not fix our broken immigration system.
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Thatâs the kicker right?
This solves exactly nothing. And it makes no sense.
The narrative that itâs all about just cheap labor is incorrect too. Many times, these folks work for the same $$ that you would pay an âAmericanâ guy - itâs just that the quality of work is not there from the American worker.
And even if a particular immigrant is legal or even naturalized, I can tell you right now they donât want to be in spaces that could get raided. Miller is a ghoul and so many of the ICE agents are Proud Boys just itching to take out their White Nationalist rage on someone. No thanks.
I donât know how to jump up and down and shout about this any more without attracting undue attention to my own family. This is really really bad.
And people who donât get systems donât see the effects on the industry. Whether we like it or not, little Sallyâs backyard ponyâs health relies on the racing industry and the competition industry. Thatâs where veterinary medicine, breeding and feed advances come from. There isnât enough money in the backyard pony or the small organic boarding barns to fuel all of those sub-industries. You think vet med is hard now? Just wait until the research stops because there isnât any funding.
But people canât connect the dots and see how the health of those industries are directly intertwined with the horses they see standing in their backyard pastures.
And again - no one said that the system was working as it was. It needed reform. It did. But it wasnât because it let too many people in. It was because we didnât have a pathway for people who came in to become legalized (called regularization in Mexico, which I think is a better description, honestly).
I think itâs wise for people to get educated on how the systems work in most of Latin America and then you can see why people might be confused when coming here about the way healthcare works (or doesnât) âcreating a drainâ on our resources (as Iâve heard the complaint). Or not realizing that the paperwork complexities could result in a violent, forced, removal.
This just was not the answer. It satisfies peopleâs rage about their own circumstances for a time, but that wonât last. Weâll eventually run out of groups of people to blame, and then what?
I know Iâm preaching to the choir but I am just so despondent. Iâm watching the devastation of the horse industry, my country, and people I love at the same time. Some of it is getting the blinders removed - I honestly thought we were better than this.
I was wrong.
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Yep we used to say âthe cruelty is the pointâ. We have Stephen Miller etal to thank for this mess.
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How many times can I like this post? 
And the pain we feel in the horse industry is going to be one of those slow continuous stinging dripsâŠlabor shortage, price increases, basic equestrian services will cost more. Simple ingredients like vitamin E, vitamin C, many of the B complex will cost more âeven if the raw material doesnât come from China. The Netherlands is a significant producer of vitamins.
What karma now awaits us with this cruelty of deportation? We were supposed to be a light in the worldâŠ
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PsstâŠsome people thought that America was becoming too brown. The regime is trying to fix this âproblem.â
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Yes.
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Yes, on a Friday afternoon. Many businesses are still on summer Fridays. Try it in the morning before work, or on a regular weekday.
I boarded at LAEC for years and am very familiar with the drive.
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The cartels infuriate me for their human - especially child - trafficking.
And of course the open border we had for a few years that made it easy for them.
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Weâve never had an open border with Mexico, what nonsense. If you crossed it regularly youâd know that. And arenât you from Europe? If so you know what an open border is and that the US border is not open.
We do have a long rural and remote border but thatâs another story. Itâs not open.
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This is not accurate. This is propaganda.
From an October 23rd article on Axios:
Behind the âopen borderâ myth
An Axios review of news stories found that the âopen borderâ language took off during the Obama administration as conservatives worked to thwart planned immigration reform.
- Obama pulled back from nominating Thomas Saenz, who is now the president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, to run the Justice Departmentâs civil rights division after conservative pundits falsely claimed he was âan open-borders extremist.â
- Obama was routinely attacked for supporting open borders, though he stepped up deportations and was labeled by immigrant advocates as the âdeporter-in-chief.â
Zoom out: Today, GOP presidential candidates repeat the false claim that President Biden supports open borders.
- In two presidential debates, candidates Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Mike Pence alluded to open borders with little evidence.
- Upset over Bidenâs decision to lift a Trump-era policy, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott denounced Biden for having open border policies, though he didnât define what that was.
What theyâre saying: âWe donât have open borders because the U.S. government is attempting to stop as many people who cross the border as they can,â David J. Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, tells Axios.
- In fact, the Biden Administration is now deporting migrants to Mexico even if they arenât from Mexico.
- âIf the administration was pursuing any kind of open border policy, the number of people being arrested would be dropping. And thatâs not the case. Theyâre arresting and expelling as many people as ever.â
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A former student of mine, now a DVM was a Dreamer.
Thank God they managed to gain citizenship before this.
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Any updates on the horse care at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center?
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Interesting that your response focuses on the border, and doesnât mention the human trafficking.
Just an observation, nothing more.
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