ICE raid on track workers sends shockwaves around racing, 'puts horses at risk'
Source: USA Today
June 19, 2025, 12:55 p.m. ET
Like so many farms, meat-packing plants and other industries that rely heavily on immigrant labor, horse racing is full of people who supported President Trump’s campaign in 2024 but did not believe he would target their businesses with the mass deportations he promised. “They were convinced that he was only going after the bad guys,” said Will Velie, an immigration attorney who specializes in the horse racing industry. “But the definition of bad guys to a lot of people in the administration is anyone here without status.” And now, perhaps predictably, there’s reason for horse racing to be nervous that it’s about to have a major problem on its hands.
An ICE raid Tuesday morning at Delta Downs in Vinton, Louisiana, where more than 80 backstretch workers were reportedly detained, should be a wake-up call for an industry that would simply not be able to function without a workforce of grooms and hotwalkers and stall cleaners who are, by some credible estimates, roughly 75% immigrants. They come from places like Venezuela, Panama, Colombia and Mexico, working low-wage jobs but filling indispensable roles, caring round-the-clock for animals worth hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars.
Most of these workers at the glamorous tracks like Churchill Downs and Saratoga are here on H-2B visas that the prominent and well-resourced barns manage to secure for them, allowing them to travel from one race meet to the next. Even in the best of times, though, it can be a tricky system to navigate with just 66,000 issued each year by the U.S. government, long processing times and an intricate renewal mechanism. And, of course, these are not the best of times.
In a climate where immigrant construction workers are getting systematically arrested in Home Depot parking lots, the only thing that would prevent racetracks from being a big, fat target for ICE are the whims of a president. “We’re out in the middle of the open,” Velie said. “There’s no hiding. You’re in the middle of a town and they can surround you and come round up a lot of people at once.”
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/dan-wolken/2025/06/19/ice-raid-horse-racing-immigration/84273527007/
As they should have noticed, they can revoke any kind of visa that they want at anytime and no one will stop them as the illegalities work their way through the slow court system that they then ignore.
It's called "changing the rules" or as people have quoted from "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back", "altering the deal" -
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