By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, November 20, 1991
The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page B08
Federal immigration officials on Tuesday seized 70 workers in a sweep of The Meadowlands Racetrack for illegal aliens, authorities said.
Immigration and Naturalization Service agents, working on a tip and after surveillance of the stable area, took 64 men and six women into custody during the 90-minute raid, INS Supervisory Special Agent Allen Kampel said.
The workers mostly grooms and walkers were finishing their workday, which started about 5 a.m., when the sweep began in the stalls and dormitories at 11:30 a.m. They were taken to the INS field office in Jersey City for processing.
Most of the 70 had false immigration papers that they had presented to the New Jersey Racing Commission, which then licensed them to work at the track, Kampel said.
Stable hands are employed by horse trainers, not The Meadowlands Racetrack or the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, said racetrack spokeswoman Ellen Harvey.
Those taken into custody Tuesday face detention and an administrative hearing to determine whether they will be deported, Kampel said.
“If a person does not have the authorization to live and work in the United States, we are mandated to enforce the law,” he said. “The main point of all of this is that we have the hope that American citizens and other people authorized to work here would be hired to do these jobs.”
Kampel said six of the workers had papers allowing them to be in the country but not to work. Four are juveniles, ages 14 to 16. A majority 64 are from Mexico, with two from Peru, two from Guatemala, and one each from Chile and the Dominican Republic, he said.
Workers who were checked and found to have legal papers milled around the stables Tuesday, watching warily as officers led friends and relatives away in plastic handcuffs. Many either could not speak English or said they couldn’t.
Johnny Ortiz, a 24-year-old groom, said fear of being turned in to the INS is a constant in the lives of the stable hands.
Ortiz, a U.S. citizen, said the workers have little or no education and often work seven days a week for $175 to $325 per week, depending on the trainer who hires them.
Almost all live in dormitories at the track, sometimes three or four to a room, Ortiz said. The rent-free, dormitory-style housing is provided by the sports authority for hundreds of stable hands.
Most of them send the money they earn home to the countries from which they came, Ortiz said.
“It’s a shame for me to see this happen to them, just for the simple reason that these people, they struggle so much,” he said. “I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a lot of people from other countries here.”
The agents were assisted in the raid by state police, Bergen County Sheriff’s Department officers, and U.S. Labor Department officials.
ID: 17361491 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)
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