Del Mar Cancels Races Today After INS Sweep : More Than 100 Illegal Alien Workers at Track Rounded Up by Immigration Agents

Del Mar Race Track officials canceled today’s racing schedule after an early morning sweep by the Immigration and Naturalization Service on Friday that netted more than 100 illegal aliens working here.

Martin Panza, spokesman for the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, which conducts the 43-day thoroughbred meet at the track, said the decision to scratch today’s card was made after trainers entered only 10 horses. Nine races had been scheduled, and a minimum of six horses per race is needed.

He said that 11 horses were entered for Sunday’s meet but that no decision on whether to cancel Sunday’s races will be made until mid-day today. Nine races had also been scheduled for Sunday.

Cancellation of the races and the sweep by immigration agents culminated a two-year dispute between horse trainers and immigration service officials, who say that as many as half the 3,000 track employees are illegal aliens. Immigration authorities, saying that trainers had been refusing to cooperate in identifying illegal workers, had been threatening a raid for more than a week.

After the raid, trainers decided to carry out an earlier threat to hold horses out of weekend races. They said they could not find enough stable hands to properly train the thoroughbreds. More than 100 undocumented workers had been arrested in selective raids near the track earlier this week, and many more of the back-stretch workers had left the track before Friday morning to avoid being detained.

$5 Million a Day in Bets

On a typical weekend day more than 25,000 people attend the seaside track, betting more than $5 million. Each day of canceled racing costs the state about $220,000 in revenues.

Some trainers said the cancellation of today’s races could threaten the rest of the meet. Tom Hamilton, board chairman of the Thoroughbred Club, said, however, that he is “very optimistic” about finishing the meet.

The Friday morning raid by the Immigration and Naturalization Service was described by immigration officials as the largest alien sweep ever conducted in the San Diego region, involving 160 agents.

It began before dawn when several Border Patrol vans roared down the back stretch of the race track to seal off the workers’ housing area.

Instead of fleeing aliens, the vans came upon charging thoroughbreds being exercised on the track. Among the horses was Precisionist, which track workers said is valued at $10 million to $15 million, and Johnica, “one of the finest mares in the country,” according to one of the trainers.

Bill Shoemaker, all-time winningest jockey, was among the riders on the track.

“I looked up and there was a car coming right at me. Another 10 seconds later, and I would have been gone,” said Shoemaker.

None of the thoroughbreds was hurt seriously in the confrontation, although Precisionist narrowly missed being hit by one of the vans. Trainers said several horses sustained minor injury. One rider was thrown but was not injured.

Immigration service officials said later that they had understood that no horses would be running before sunrise.

According to race track security guards, the immigration service officers, carrying maps and walkie-talkies, methodically combed the back-stretch housing and horse barns, arresting 123 suspects to a chorus of jeers and cheers from the watching workers.

Raid Called a Success

Two hours after the 5:45 a.m. start of the raid, the undocumented aliens were herded aboard Border Patrol buses, which served as a backdrop for a press conference conducted by Harold Ezell, INS regional commissioner, and Alan Eliason, chief of the Chula Vista sector of the Border Patrol.

Both officials pronounced the raid a success, despite the relatively small number of suspected aliens rounded up, and Ezell repeated that the alien sweep was mounted at the track to “send a message” to track officials and horsemen that they must find a long-range solution to the problem of employing illegal aliens in low-paying jobs.

Trainers have acknowledged that many of their workers are in the country illegally, but say they simply cannot function without them.

A handful of reporters and cameramen alerted to the sweep swelled to a crowd at the end of the two hours, but they found few of the back-stretch inhabitants willing to talk about the problem. Most shrugged off questions by asking the questioners to get out of the way of their work.

“We’ve got to do the work of 10 people since you guys scared off all the others,” one girl said as she trundled a wheelbarrow of dirty straw to the dump area.

Luke Dufresne, a Bostonian who said he has worked “at just about every track in the country,” sided with the immigration service, however, and said he had been “shouted down” two weeks ago when he proposed to a gathering of horse trainers that they recruit track workers from Florida in late October and early November, when most of the East Coast track workers migrate south.

‘Guest Worker Plan’

Ezell also had a plan--the federal government’s “guest worker program”-- which, he said, horsemen had rejected because it was “too complicated, too much paper work.”

The INS commissioner would not respond to reporters’ queries about whether there would be future raids at the Del Mar track and conceded that he had expected more workers to be caught in the sweep.

“They’ll be back. We realize that,” Ezell said. “But we must enforce the immigration laws.”

John Fulton, a spokesman for the horse trainers’ group, the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn., said that the trainers “can’t do anything about this situation. We can’t race horses that aren’t in shape, and we haven’t got the workers to do anything more than see that the horses are fed and watered. It’s just baby-sitting.”

Horse owner Bob Forgno, cleaning out his horses’ stalls, said: “These horses are like athletes. If they don’t train, they can’t perform. And we don’t have the trained help to keep them in shape.”

Meeting Over Dispute

Owners and immigration service officials reportedly met in San Clemente late Friday in an attempt to end the dispute about illegal aliens employed at the track. An offer by Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), to provide a member of his staff to mediate the dispute was made Friday to the INS, the race track and trainers’ officials. Otto Bos, director of public relations for Wilson, said that the offer had been received with interest by the groups but that there had been no formal reply.

Eliason said that all but one of those arrested were suspected of being in the United States illegally. One man, a U.S. citizen, was arrested on suspicion of attempting to smuggle two Mexican workers out of the fairgrounds in his car. Border Patrol officers pursued the car, stopped it and arrested all three.

Leonard Foote, secretary of the state Horse Racing Board, said the board would consider any cancellation of a day’s racing “a factor” in possible revocation of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club’s license to conduct races at the Del Mar track.

Foote added, however, that the Thoroughbred Club had contracted to conduct 43 days of racing at the track and could make up any days missed by scheduling racing on Tuesdays, when the track normally is closed.

‘Knew They Were Coming’

Ezell and Foote said the illegal aliens will be “interrogated and processed” over the weekend. Those who agree to voluntary deportation will be “sent back to their place of origin” in Mexico, Guatemala and several other Latin American countries, the officials said, and those who refuse to sign deportation papers will be held for hearings.

Workers at the track said some of those arrested will be released on $2,000 bond pending their deportation hearings. One worker, who refused to give her name, said, “We knew that they were coming today because now the INS can hold them over the weekend and we won’t be able to post bond until Monday.”

Workers and owners alike pitched in to finish the morning chores interrupted by the raid, mucking out stalls, exercising horses, feeding and watering them. Training was interrupted for two hours because Border Patrol vans were blocking the track, but trainers said that they did not have enough experienced riders to give the horses their daily track exercise anyway.

When the raid occurred Friday morning, “most of the rooms were empty,” workers said, because more than 500 undocumented workers had left their jobs and several hundred others were “sleeping elsewhere and working other shifts” to avoid being at the track during the early morning hours, when most raids occur.

Some of the trainers at Del Mar were upset about the way the raid was handled by INS agents. See Sports.