Latest news with #Velie
The Herald Scotland
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
ICE raid track sends shockwaves across racing: 'There's no hiding'
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." 'Everybody's nervous' Ever since it became clear during the first weeks of the current Trump Administration that its posture toward deportations would be more aggressive than in his first term, it has been horse racing's barely spoken but impossible-to-ignore fear, lingering in the background every day on the backside. "Everybody's nervous about it," prominent trainer Dale Romans told reporters during a Kentucky Derby-week news conference set up to specifically address the threat posed by a potential ICE raid at a racetrack. "If we couldn't have an immigrant workforce on the backside, I don't know how horse racing exists. We need a common sense path to long-term legalization. We're not talking citizenship, just some kind of work permit. "The perfect scenario is we get an amnesty program that leads to a work permit. If you're vetted, if you're proven not to be a criminal, you pay your taxes, you are sponsored by an employer, you have a right to work in the United States. That's all we're asking for." It is, of course, a difficult topic to get most people to address. Not just because trainers or owners are reticent to draw undue attention to themselves but because of the clear political implications: The racetrack is, by and large, an unabashedly Republican-leaning ecosystem. Many prominent owners and racetrack executives have direct lines to Trump himself. And that's why it seemed like there was relief last week when the Department of Homeland Security issued guidance exempting the agricultural industry, hotels and restaurants from these raids due to the harm being inflicted on those businesses. Though horse racing wasn't specifically mentioned, it clearly falls into the same category. Then, a couple days later, the White House reversed course and decided to resume those raids. It didn't take long for a racetrack to be on the hit list. "The head of the New York Racing Association, Marc Holliday, is business partners with (Trump's son-in-law) Jared Kushner, so he had pretty strong assurances there would be some type of executive action protecting the horsemen and agriculture workers," Velie said. "But I think there's a lot of competing factions inside the administration battling over this." Sweeping up 'folks that are constantly caring for the horses' Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, the issue of whether horse racing should be relying on cheap immigrant labor is fair game for critique. Steve Asmussen, the all-time winningest trainer in North America, earlier this month finally settled a 10-year-old court case with the Department of Labor over hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime and back pay. Over the years, whenever wages and living conditions of backstretch workers have been subject to media scrutiny, it's rarely made the industry look good. It's a tough way to make a living. But in the end, for thousands of people who desperately need it, it is a living. And their symbiotic relationship with horses who need to be fed and taken care of isn't just a human story. One of the biggest concerns coming out of any potential racetrack raid is what happens to the horses while their grooms are being arrested. "The problem is that the kind of work the people on the backside, the grooms and hotwalkers, those folks that are constantly caring for the horses and making sure they're maintained and healthy, that job is 24-7 just a real difficult job," said Peter Ecabert, the general counsel for the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association. "It's hard to get anyone to do that job, and we depend a lot on immigrants and they're hard-working and good people. Obviously there are a couple that may have run afoul of the legal system, and in those cases, especially if there's a violent situation we don't want them around either. We'd work with ICE in any way possible to make sure those people are taken into custody and transported back after their due process hearing. But as far as an unannounced raid on the backside of racetracks, that just puts all of us in a real difficult situation and puts the horses at risk." Chelsea Perez, the senior program manger of equine protection at Humane World for Animals, told USA TODAY Sports that it was critical for any law enforcement action to include a process where the safety and well-being of the horses is secured. "Horses are large, easily frightened animals who can suffer serious injury or injure others when not properly handled," she said. "The development of appropriate protocols is key to effective emergency response for both law enforcement agencies and equine facility managers." Meanwhile, there is a school of thought among those USA TODAY Sports has spoken with that a racetrack in Louisiana was particularly vulnerable to an ICE raid for a few reasons, including the fact that racing in the state is operating under a court injunction preventing the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) rules from being enforced. A HISA spokesperson declined comment, and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association did not answer a request for comment. Delta Downs is also currently running its quarter horse meet, where there would be stronger suspicion about workers without visas being present than at higher-profile Thoroughbred tracks. Still, there's a potential chilling effect for the whole industry now that an ICE raid has taken place at a racetrack, particularly given the lack of consistent message from the Trump Administration. "There is a lot of tension on the backside," Ecabert said. "People are concerned, obviously, that there's going to be (another) raid and a lot of apprehensive people for sure." Of course, this is what many of those owners and trainers voted for - even if they didn't realize it. "I got calls from tracks all over the country (the next day), and every one of them was saying the same thing: 'If it happens there, it can happen here. What's our plan?' Velie said. "The long-term plan is to get your workforce on to stable visas, but in the short term, we're stuck."
Miami Herald
12-04-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
‘I've been nothing but transparent': Former UIC student speaks out after his visa was revoked
CHICAGO - It was a typical Thursday night for the financial analyst, who was watching "Lord of the Rings" when he got the email with the subject line "visa revoked." At first, the University of Illinois Chicago grad from India thought it was a joke - just a scam email from some Indian website trying to mess with him. But then he received a second email after he tried logging into his Student and Exchange Visitor Program portal. "Your OPT authorization period has ended," the email read. At that moment, his entire life paused. The former student, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, graduated from UIC in 2023 and was continuing to work in the U.S. on a STEM optional practical training extension. He previously worked at Bank of America and was being considered for a role at J.P. Morgan. Now, he has to focus on self-deporting, selling off items like his TV and giving away other belongings to his friends. He plans on leaving the country April 13 and is unsure whether he'll even be able to work for J.P. Morgan. "I would choose to stay and fight but on Reddit I've been hearing different stories about ICE detaining students," the former student said. He is one of hundreds of international students nationwide who have had their visas terminated in the past few weeks for unclear or arbitrary reasons. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a student one month away from graduating seemingly had her visa revoked for a previous traffic violation. In Florida, a student from Colombia was taken into custody by immigration agents after he was stopped by Gainesville police with an expired registration and driver's license. He signed his self-deportation and returned home. In Illinois alone, dozens of students have had their visas revoked, with seven confirmed cases from the University of Chicago and eight confirmed cases from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. A high-ranking official at U. of I. who did not have permission to speak on the record told the Tribune that 19 students had their visas rescinded, according to data in the SEVIS system, an online system used to monitor the records and information of international students on F-1 or J-1 visas and keep track of students whose visa status is being challenged. Students from UIC, Northwestern and Southern Illinois University Carbondale also have had their visas terminated; officials from those schools declined to say how many. The mass terminations have left students scrambling, with many unsure what to do next and whether they can continue their studies. "These calls are flooding in," said Jon Velie, an immigration and litigation attorney in Oklahoma whose firm is preparing to file a lawsuit in response to the student visa revocations. "I probably had 10 different people call a day, a couple just walked in. It's nuts. There's a lot of anxiety." Among the students he's spoken to, Velie found that many of those who had their visas revoked had traffic violations or misdemeanor cases that were dropped - incidents he said do not rise to the level of a deportable offense. "You retroactively can't change the law," Velie said. "So if a new law changed and said that a parking ticket was a deportable offense, you can't go back retroactively and say 'You parked illegally last week or two years ago or in 1999.' Laws don't work that way." Legal experts say once a SEVIS record is terminated, a student's legal status becomes immediately invalid and they must either leave the U.S. within the grace period, typically 15 days, or take steps to restore their status. Otherwise, they may risk deportation and future visa restrictions. The UIC grad, originally from India, said his university was not aware of his visa revocation until he called student legal services for guidance. The email he received from the U.S. Consulate General Mumbai regarding his visa termination, which was reviewed by the Tribune, said only that the visa was revoked because "additional information became available" after the visa was issued. Some visa terminations have been related to participation in pro-Palestinian protests or political speech criticizing Israel, such as the high-profile case of Mahmoud Khalil, who helped lead last spring's protests at Columbia University and now faces possible deportation despite facing no criminal charges. The UIC grad believes the reason his visa may have been revoked is a misdemeanor charge back in 2019. He was working in the U.S. at the time and said he got into a fight with a girlfriend he was living with at the time. The neighbors overheard the fight and eventually ended up calling the cops on him, which led to him getting arrested. Charges were never pressed against him and the court ordered him to take anger management classes. He never had any run-ins with the law after that. Several months later, the former student lost his job in a round of layoffs. That layoff, combined with the on-set of the COVID-19 pandemic, led him to return to India. The former student has since tried to move on from the arrest, but he said the incident left a huge mark on his conscience. "I just don't want my life to be defined by some misunderstanding that the neighbors had," he said. "I have just been trying to get my education, move forward in life, not to get into situations like these again." And he's been doing just that. He reentered the U.S. in 2022 to begin his master's program at UIC, during which he was honest about the arrest. "I've been nothing but transparent with the U.S. government," the former student said. "During my reapplication, I had all the relevant paperwork related to my misdemeanor. Since charges were dropped and the case was dismissed after taking anger management sessions, I was approved for a visa by the officer in my home country." The former student had an arrest record on file and nothing else, and while that arrest record caused extra scrutiny from his former employer Bank of America later down the line, it ultimately did not stop him from getting the job. Coming to America to study was also a huge dream for him ever since he was 18. He thought there were more opportunities here in the field he was interested in. He persuaded his parents to let him go to the U.S. and in 2014, started his studies in computer science at Rutgers University. "I was a guy who never left his home, and everyone assumed that I would be home sick a lot," he said. But once he arrived in the U.S., he found himself flourishing. Here, he said he could pursue different paths of intellectual curiosity and take classes that had nothing to do with his computer science studies, something he did not feel like he could do back in India. "You feel like your life is in your own hands. You can do whatever you want with your life," he said. That possibility is what made him want to continue to work and study in the U.S. The former student, now 29, said his dream was to work in the U.S. at a bank for a long period of time, pursue a Ph.D. in the U.S. and potentially become a professor. Now, he is giving up those dreams and is going to begin the application process for Ph.D. programs in Europe. "I was really angry. I was really angry with myself. I was really angry with the things that are happening," he said. "I'm trying not to think about it, and trying to avoid processing it." Experts have previously told the Tribune that the mass student visa cancellations may cause some students with strong training and educational background in STEM fields to take their skills elsewhere. "You can take your degree and go somewhere else," said Ida Salusky, a research associate professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine who works with many international students in the biomedical sciences. "If people feel unwelcome or they feel like they're going to be under threat, if and when they transition from a student visa to a work visa, if you're an engineer or you're a highly skilled biochemist, you can get jobs in other countries." The UIC graduate felt that sentiment. "I'm just trying to avoid all the future risk that I might have after reapplication here," he said. "So in my mind, I think Ph.D. programs in Europe make sense because the reason for visa revocation here is probably going to be the only thing that is going to cause any issues at all if I apply to colleges there." Still, the decision to pivot away from his dreams was not an easy one and even shocked some of his friends. "My friends think of me as a person who won't stop until he gets what he wants," he said. "So me basically saying that I'm not going to do that anymore is more of a shock than whatever visa revocation shock that I faced. … I think that goes to show how dedicated I've been so far to make my dreams happen." ____ Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
