Del Mar Race Track : Stable Workers Flee Threat of Raid by INS

The threat of a sweeping crackdown on as many as 1,500 illegal aliens believed to be working as grooms and hot walkers at the Del Mar Race Track persisted Sunday as immigration officials, horse trainers and track managers tried with little success to agree on a way of carrying out the crackdown without disrupting the track’s racing schedule.

Agents for the Border Patrol late Sunday postponed a plan to require all trainers to bring in their employees one by one for identification checks at an immigration service trailer on the track grounds. Instead, negotiations were to continue this morning, according to the Border Patrol agent on the case.

Meanwhile, several trainers and documented and undocumented workers at the track said many of the illegal aliens who make up the bulk of the work force on the “back stretch” had already fled in anticipation of a raid. They said many others had gathered their belongings and were ready to go.

“They’ve got their bags packed and sitting in the rooms,” said one man, who identified himself only as a groom and hot walker who has worked legally for one trainer since 1983. “Once they get the word, they’re all going to go. It’s going to be a ghost town.”

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) first threatened the crackdown last week, after officials say they received complaints and learned through sources at the track that as many as 1,500 undocumented Mexicans, El Salvadorans, Nicaraguans and others were employed by the estimated 200 trainers managing horses there.

The illegal aliens make up the largest concentration of undocumented workers employed in San Diego County, said Michael Williams, the deputy chief Border Patrol agent for the San Diego sector. Williams said that some of the 35 workers arrested at the track last Wednesday and Thursday were being paid $5 a day and were living in unsanitary conditions with several people to a room.

“We are not interested in crippling the operation there by removing all the illegal alien help at one time,” Williams said. “However, lacking any kind of cooperative effort on the part of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn. and the various employers, we’ll have no choice but to go in and round up as many as we can.”

But members of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn. (HBPA), which represents the trainers, argued yesterday that their business and the track could not get along without illegal aliens. Several said U.S. citizens seemed inexplicably unwilling to do the work, even though the trainers insisted most pay at least the minimum wage.

Two trainers who agreed to talk on the condition that they not be named said they hoped that the racing schedule would be disrupted, to call attention to the problem. Only then would state officials realize that the workers should be exempted from normal immigration laws, they said, because the lucrative racing industry depends upon them statewide.

“I’m not trying to say that what we’re doing is legal. I’m just talking about the realities,” said one trainer who insisted he not be named. “We’re not trying to hurt people or to keep Americans out of jobs. It’s just that we have a business that doesn’t survive any other way.”

Estimates of the number of illegal aliens working at Del Mar mucking out stalls, grooming horses and cooling them down after exercise ranged from 800 to 1,500. Trainers and track managers said they believe that illegal aliens make up 50% to 80% of the men and women working directly with the horses.

Trainers said the workers tend to be Mexican because the Mexicans grew up on farms, work well with animals and enjoy the work. But Williams said they tend to be Mexican because the pay and working conditions are so poor that U.S. citizens and legal workers would not take the jobs.

The illegal aliens are employed by the trainers, many of them moving from track to track throughout the racing season. Several trainers said they pay at least the minimum wage and salaries up to $20,000 a year. But Williams said some workers reported salaries of no more than $5 a day.

According to Williams, the INS received complaints from U.S. citizens and legal aliens who said they were unable to get work at the track. The Border Patrol, the enforcement arm of INS, began checking track workers Wednesday and Thursday and arrested about 35 out of the 55 checked, Williams said.

Williams said the HPBA and the track managers had agreed to cooperate with the INS and the California Horse Racing Board by allowing them to set up a trailer and begin today checking every worker for documentation. But late Sunday afternoon he said that plan was postponed pending further negotiation.

“Believe me, that’s not going to happen,” said one trainer, referring to the plan for a cooperative agreement under which trainers would hand over their workers for checking. “Who’s going to do that?”

To which Williams responded, “If that’s the case then, we’ll have to look at some other method of checking the help. If they won’t do it in a cooperative effort.” Williams said the Border Patrol arrested 175 suspected illegal aliens several months ago in a raid by about 40 agents on the San Luis Rey Downs race track.

Many illegal workers had already fled by Sunday afternoon, according to trainers, workers and track managers.

Joseph W. Harper, general manager of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, estimated that as many as 300 to 400 workers had left during the past few days. One trainer said, “I think they’ll be 50% gone tonight.”

Harper said he expected the races to go on Monday, but when asked if they might be canceled Wednesday, he replied, “It’s that serious. I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

One man, who was put on the telephone by a trainer and identified himself only as a 30-year-old illegal alien from Mexico named Jose, said Sunday afternoon that he could not decide whether to stay or go.

“If I run away, then I don’t have a job anymore,” said the man, who said he has worked in the United States for 12 years, sending money back to his family in Mexico and returning there for one month out of each year.

The man said he received about $10,000 to gallop horses for a trainer, for whom he had worked for three years. He said he had a Social Security card that he got through a woman in Arizona in 1977, and a California Horse Racing Board license to work at the track.

He said he had never attempted to get a green card or official permission to work in the United States because, “I never really got the help from nobody. By myself, I never thought I could get it done.”

According to Williams, the INS encouraged the trainers’ group two years ago to begin getting documentation for their workers--a process that he said requires filing considerable paper work and applying for certification that there is a special need for foreign workers.

“Nothing has been done by them either individually or as an association,” Williams said. “Until they try to go through that process, they can’t expect us to do overnight what they have failed to do for two years.”

Williams added, “I think if they wanted to make the effort and pay decent wages, they could probably do so. In any case, we’re charged with enforcing these laws and we can’t ignore the problems.”