INS Threatens to Crack Down on Illegal Aliens at Del Mar Race Track

United States Immigration and Naturalization Service officials Tuesday said that they are obtaining a search warrant and will take “appropriate action” if the trainers at Del Mar Race Track refuse to help clear the track of illegal aliens.

But the officials declined to set a deadline for the trainers, who employ an estimated 1,500 illegal aliens as grooms, hotwalkers and other workers.

In response, an official of the group that represents the 200 to 250 trainers managing horses at the track said that his organization cannot meet the immigration officials’ demands because it cannot dictate to individual trainers.

“We cannot order the trainers to do anything,” said Bob McAnally, secretary-treasurer of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn. “Trainers act on their individual needs. We’re not in a position to demand that the trainer turn over his work list.”

At a press conference in San Ysidro, Harold Ezell, the regional commissioner of the INS, said that the HPBA has repeatedly refused to give the INS a list of its employees.

He also accused the trainers of twice breaking an agreement between the INS and the HPBA, under which the trainers were to bring their employees to an INS trailer for checking last week.

Alan Eliason, Border Patrol sector chief, said: “We have reached the end of our rope. We are being told, ‘Leave us alone, stay out, let us do our thing.’ That is unacceptable.”

The HPBA had held its own press conference Monday night, officials saying that they were asking the INS for time to address the problem. They said they were opening a hiring hall, trying to hire legal help and beginning efforts to get temporary permits for their workers.

But Ezell said those steps don’t address the immediate problem--that as many as 75% of the barn area workers are illegal aliens. He insisted that the trainers must turn over a list of employees before the INS will be satisfied that the trainers are cooperating.