119 Illegal Aliens Are Arrested in INS Raid

A top immigration official said Friday that a temporary worker program designed to help Southern California’s major race tracks is in jeopardy because a predawn raid on a thoroughbred horse training facility here led to the arrest of 119 illegal aliens.

Harold Ezell, regional commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the results of the raid indicate to him that horse trainers are returning to a pattern that caused highly publicized INS raids last year against the Del Mar and Santa Anita race tracks, in which nearly 300 illegal aliens were arrested.

“We’ve found the same old pattern . . . the trainers are not making any effort to hire legal aliens or U.S. citizens,” said Ezell, who was at the scene of the 1 a.m. raid at the San Luis Rey Downs Thoroughbred Racing Center in this northern San Diego County community.

“If they (trainers) think they are buying more time from us, they’d better think again. That’s not the way the game is going to be played,” Ezell said in a telephone interview.

As a result of last year’s raids, which caused Del Mar to close for a day at the height of the racing season, the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn., which represents horse trainers, agreed to cooperate with the U.S. Department of Labor and the INS on a special temporary worker program.

Trainers Becoming Lax

The program, known as H-2, allowed foreign workers to receive special visas permitting them to work at Del Mar, Santa Anita in Arcadia and Hollywood Park in Inglewood, but only from January to October this year. Meanwhile, the trainers are supposed to find, train and hire legal workers. Three of the people arrested Friday held the H-2 visas, which are meaningless outside the three tracks.

Ezell said he thought that the program was working and that more than 330 of the special visas were issued. But Friday’s raid--even though it was not at one of the three tracks in the program--shows that trainers have become lax, according to Ezell.

“What I believe is that trainers think, ‘Now that we have the program, they aren’t going to bother me again.’ Well, that’s not so,” Ezell said.

Neither Don Johnson, head of the Arcadia-based horsemen’s association, nor the association’s treasurer, Doug Atkins, was available for comment.

Ezell and other immigration officials said living conditions at San Luis Rey Downs were “deplorable.” Many of the illegal aliens, they said, were living in small sheds with little or no ventilation. Some were in two-story buildings without fire escapes. And still others were living in rooms that were locked from the outside, preventing them from leaving.

Second Raid in Year

Richard Ramirez, assistant chief of the San Diego County environmental health protection division, said the facility had been cited for various substandard living conditions last year.

A secretary at San Luis Rey Downs said that Don Nunamaker, manager of the facility, was unavailable for comment.

Most of the aliens arrested were working as grooms and exercise riders. Six of the 119 were women and four were juveniles, according to Ed Pyeatt, Border Patrol spokesman for the San Diego area, who noted that the raid was the second in a year at San Luis Rey Downs.