01x03 - Down the Backstretch

[bunniefuu]

They're off.

Swinging over from the outside

to take the lead.

maintaining a length lead.

Felix pulling away.

It's anybody's race with 200 yards to

come. Cavalcade has his head in front.

It's like a drug.

Once you've experienced it,

it never goes away.

When my horse is coming down

the stretch, it's just, "Please win."

Cavalcade is home

by two and a half lengths.

The front side is the racetrack.

The front side is the fans, the hats.

It's everything that fans see.

All those barns that you see

when they go around the turn

in the Kentucky Derby,

that's the backside.

That's where the work is done.

You might have a fancy trainer

that you see on TV

that looks like the face of it.

But really the groom,

he sleeps in its stall when it's sick.

That person is so integral

to the success of the horse.

They're the people behind the scenes

that make everything work.

Americans in the horse industry,

they have very high positions.

You will be the trainer

or the assistant trainer.

The jobs that are held by Latino

immigrants will be your hot walkers,

groom, from time to time,

a foreman.

There are three or four

major American industries

that would not exist the way

they do, but for immigrant labor.

Build that wall. Build that wall.

But, it's one of the thorniest

issues in American politics.

When Mexico sends its people,

they're not sending their best.

They're bringing drugs.

They're bringing crime.

When we talk about immigration,

we're talking about a set of laws,

but we're also talking

about people.

Why are we allowing

immigration policy

that does not reward our hardest

workers? Why are we okay with that?

You can't move forward

without these workers.

You really need them

to keep the business running.

If you don't have them,

then you won't have the sport.

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

DOWN THE BACKSTRETCH

This is my father right here

with a big chain.

My dad apparently was one of

the best horse groomers in New York.

They actually used to compete

on which horse looked the best

when they were taking them out

to horse races.

And my dad was always the winner.

My father came from Mexico. He entered

as an ill*gal alien at the age of 15.

He started just sweeping around

the barns, and moved his way up.

When my mother arrived,

she was pregnant with me,

she also arrived

as an ill*gal alien.

She was actually feeding all the guys

that worked in the horse industry,

because a lot of the men are here

while their wives are in Mexico.

So she was their cook.

We actually lived

in the backstretch of the track

in a little room inside the barn.

Other families lived there as well.

My mom would set up little blankets,

so we could sleep on the floor,

since we had to move

from track to track.

There were times where they used to

kick us out when securities found us.

So my dad used to just rent

little motels and leave us there.

You're working

with very dangerous animals.

We had a lot of incidents. My mom

was cleaning the horse's feet.

It hit her, and she ended up

in the hospital.

There was another time,

this horse got really crazy,

and my dad also ended up

in the hospital.

So, it's dangerous.

They can hurt you, but we love it.

This is when my father

had his horses.

I was his hot walker

at age 15.

This is me walking El Futuro.

So he named the horse El Futuro,

because he said

horses were his future.

The thoroughbred is the finest

race horse in the world.

And its purpose in life

is to win races,

bring honor to its owner

and make lots of money.

The thoroughbred is really a creation

of the era of modern globalization.

Towards the end of the 1600s,

and the beginning of the 1700s,

stallions are shipped

from the present day Middle East,

and they're brought

to Great Britain,

and they're crossed with mares

that are already there.

And you have a formation of the breed

that we call the thoroughbred horse.

Racing really becomes something

that they're clearly good at.

And in the United States,

by the 19th century,

you're starting to have

a national racing culture,

Sheepshead Bay, Churchill Downs,

which is founded in 1875.

And then, Chicago really

comes on the scene in the 1880s.

It takes an incredible amount

of specialized labor

to take care of any horse.

And it takes an even more incredible

amount of even more specialized labor

to get a thoroughbred athlete

ready to compete.

The people who are doing basic medical

care, shoeing, grooming, and feeding,

and then riding, and training,

in the North,

It tends to be mostly

Irish immigrants

and working-class white kids

who have these jobs.

But the vast majority in the South

are going to be African-Americans.

Black people remain on the backstretch

throughout the 20th century.

For instance, the men who both

exercised and groomed Secretariat

were African-American.

So even though the numbers

have declined,

African-Americans

have never left racing.

Every afternoon, somewhere

in the United States is repeated

the age old ritual

of horse racing.

Racing became

such a popular sport.

Even until the middle part

of the 20th century,

it was still a major part

of newspaper coverage of sports.

Old Churchill Downs

is jammed with racing fans

for the 79th running

of the Kentucky Derby.

And they're off.

It's a good start on the fast track.

The horses battle for a position

in this classic mile and a quarter

run for the roses.

Horse care

is specialized knowledge.

Even heavily involved owners

are depending on the expertise

of the people

in the backstretch.

Working with horses,

period, is hard. It is dangerous.

There is no time you clock off.

It's certainly been the labor

of enslaved people,

but it's also been

immigrant work.

In a weird way,

it's actually quite logical

that given our geopolitical

relationship to Latin America,

that those folks would end up with

a lot of jobs on the backstretch.

The backstretch

is just all the employees

that keep these horses alive,

that keep this business running.

You start as a hot walker.

The person that walks the horse

after coming back from the track,

that is very important, because

we have to cool the horse down,

usually 30 to 45 minutes,

or else the horse, they either get

cramps, or they get a little hyper.

Depending on how well you do,

you will move up to a groom.

After that, the exercise riders,

they take the horses to the tracks,

so they can do

their exercise.

Then you have foreman,

assistant trainer.

And eventually, if you want

to go on your own,

you get your license

to be a trainer.

And then there's always the owner.

That's the money maker.

My job here is to ride horses.

I learned in Mexico to ride horses.

My grandfather teach me how to ride

since I was three years old.

I came here in 2006.

I decided to come,

because I love horses,

and I had the opportunity to get

an H-2B visa, and come here to ride.

So I love to come every morning.

When I lived in Mexico,

I never touched horses, you know?

Then when I came to the USA, my

brother was working with the horses.

He said, "It's easy," but I watched,

and I said, "It's not easy."

You have to work,

and do it, do it, do it.

Now, I'm good.

I come in early, 4:30,

and we start opening up.

When we come to the track

we just walk for 10 minutes,

then take them to the other side

to get rest.

We go to the stall,

and catch the next one.

Just turning, turning, turning.

What we're doing is

we're watching the horses train.

So, I watch their ears.

I see if they're up like that.

It shows they're happy,

enjoying what they're doing.

I watch the length of the stride,

how much they're cooperating

with the riders,

all those things you get used to

every day.

So if there's a little something

different, you kind of pick up on it.

They all have a role,

the grooms to the riders.

When they pull up, the riders,

I'll always ask them

if there's something that they feel

a little different, or don't like.

They tell me immediately,

and then we know to start looking,

in case there's a sore muscle

somewhere or something.

It's a team.

Everybody has their part.

They come from all over. Some

are ill*gal, been here, born here.

Others get visas.

We have some from Guatemala.

We have some from Mexico.

We've had some from Peru here.

These guys have a lot of pride

in what they do.

They're enjoying the freedoms

that we have over here,

the income

that they can have,

which they send most of it

right back to their families.

My name is Elizabeth Buckley.

I am an immigration lawyer

based out of Lexington, Kentucky.

I bring in people

that work with horses.

The reality of the situation right

now in the thoroughbred industry is

that if you hire an American worker,

the normal turnaround time,

maximum of four days.

Everybody that comes

works for a little bit and quits.

Americans would like to find jobs

that are a little safer,

and less rigorous,

and less difficult.

If you're kind of from Mexico

or a Central American country,

then you're going to have

that work ethic,

because it's so competitive

for jobs and money there

that when you get up here,

you work hard.

I'm going through, and I'm shutting

the back doors only, okay?

To be successful, you just have

to endure. This is 365 days.

There's no days off.

I graduated from college in 1994,

and went straight into horses.

I did the same work

as a Latino would do.

The relationship was good.

Other than language barriers,

and having to learn bits and pieces

to communicate,

they're very good at it.

It's not that they can just do

the labor part of it.

They're really good with the horses.

They do excellent work.

The sport without immigrant labor,

will definitely not work.

You really need these workers

to keep your business running.

But the horse industry and

immigration are both very difficult.

We're competing for a ridiculously

low number of visas.

In 17 years, it is the most

competitive it has ever been.

The entire system is completely

in need of an overhaul.

Immigration is one of the thorniest

issues that the Congress deals with.

And the challenge

over the years

has been trying to get

the Rubik's Cube right,

and that can be very tough.

We agree that we have to begin

with enforcement of the law,

and that there has to be

a workable,

and enforceable temporary

worker component to it.

We need to work together

to come up

with a practical solution

to this problem.

We got one more chance to do this.

If we fail this time around,

no politician is going

to take this up in a generation.

The system is not fair.

It's not fair to workers.

It's not fair to businesses

who are trying to do the right thing.

We have not had

what lawmakers like to call

comprehensive immigration reform

since 1990.

So, it's been 30 years that the

systems have just remained in place.

Whenever you're talking

about comprehensive reform,

you're talking about dealing

with a lot of different components.

Enforcement of the existing laws,

legalization of the undocumented

immigrant population,

and legal immigration, including

the guest worker programs.

There's so many moving parts

that it becomes easy for people

to drop off in terms of supporting it.

On this vote, the yeas are 193,

and the nays are 231.

The bill is not passed.

Because the system itself

hasn't been addressed

from a larger perspective in so long,

changes are made in small increments.

That type of change can accumulate

to a more complicated system.

Our immigration system is kind

of set up into three main buckets.

You have family-based immigration,

which is people coming

from outside the US,

because they have familial ties.

And then you have humanitarian visas

in a second bucket,

which are more like your asylum

and refugee programs.

And then the third bucket is

employment-based immigration.

And that is further split

into your employment-based visas

for lawful permanent

resident status.

And then, you have

these temporary work visa programs,

which are where guest

workers come in.

For lower skilled workers,

it's really only

the H-2A and H-2B programs

for temporary or seasonal jobs.

There are jobs where there's a spike

in demand for a certain product,

or there's a seasonal nature

to the production of the product.

These programs, by design,

have no longterm path to citizenship.

The H-2B program is meant for

nonagricultural,

seasonal guests workers.

It's popular in industries like

landscaping,

forestry, hospitality,

seafood processing.

And a small portion of those workers

work in horseracing.

A backstretch worker, if they come

under a guest worker program,

they're going to be here

for 10 months.

Normally, a horse trainer, they're

going to have a busy racing season.

So, during that busy season,

we need to bring in

temporary supplemental grooms.

We don't need them

12 months out of the year.

We need them

when we're really busy.

Throughout our nation's history,

there folks who have come here

as guest workers

that have contributed

to our nation's economy,

who have given

so much of themselves

to make this economy

make this place what it is.

The first guest worker program in US

history started during World w*r I,

when so many men were drafted

into the military,

that US farms needed

farm workers.

And they were imported from Mexico

to serve contracts on US farms.

The goal was to fill that labor

shortage, and that's the only goal.

That went away

during the Great Depression,

but it resurged again,

during World w*r II

in the form of the Bracero

guest worker program.

With a domestic supply

of farm labor being inadequate,

braceros in Spanish, this means

a man who works with his arms,

are a must.

The Bracero Program

goes from 1942 to '64.

During its lifespan,

brings in 4.5 million workers.

Farmers would recruit in Mexico,

load up a crew on a bus,

and bring them over the border

to the farm.

They would house them onsite.

They would stay at the farm

throughout the term of their contract.

And then, they would go home

at the end of the season.

There were concrete benefits

for some workers.

They were able

to support their families.

They were able to send children

to school.

They were able to see

a modicum of board mobility.

But the reality was that they also

endured high levels of exploitation.

The bracero has nobody

to represent him.

If he opens his mouth to complain,

he is sent right back to Mexico.

The Bracero Program comes

to an end in 1964

through congressional hearings,

where it is made evident that their

human rights are being violated,

and Congress shuts it down.

I don't think we've learned

the lessons from the Bracero Program.

That relationship of power,

where employers hold

so much power over employees

is something that these guest

worker programs inherently built.

Guest workers will leave

their families, come here,

and dedicate months of their lives

doing these difficult tasks,

and return to their countries

back and forth, back and forth,

never having full entry

into American society.

That, to me,

is the saddest part of all of this.

When my father first arrived,

everyone was pretty much ill*gal.

Now, visas are given

for these grooms and hot walkers.

Hot walkers, they never get paid

decently enough.

It's $200 or $300 a week,

not to survive on the outside world.

If you're living in a backstretch,

like a lot of our workers live,

then you're fine.

I would say that's enough to at least

send money home to your family.

Americans, we enjoy watching it,

but we're not going to go do the work.

Americans expect higher pay rate.

So, I feel like it's too much work

for the pay.

If backstretch work

were properly compensated,

it would be very welcome,

and it would also be a first.

Backstretch workers are

the backbone of an entire industry

that entertains us

and the reality is

that the horseracing industry

is a lucrative industry.

When you talk about

how the wage rules work,

for many years, employers were able

to vastly underpay H-2B workers

compared to what the going rate was

for many H-2B jobs.

Nationally, the wage

for H-2B landscaping workers

is $14.18 cents an hour.

But using the same dataset

that this is based on,

the OES national average wage

is $15.75 an hour.

The animal caretakers occupation,

which is where backstretch workers

fall under,

they earn 60 cents less on average

nationwide, or about just under 5%.

What it shows to me

is that nationwide,

the wages that H-2B workers are being

paid are in all cases, except one,

lower than

what the national average wage is.

The other challenge

for H-2B visa workers

is that their legal status in the US

is dependent upon that employment,

because of that power dynamic

that if they speak up,

and then if they are retaliated

against,

they lose their legal status

in the US.

They can't just leave an employer

that's treating them poorly,

and go to an employer

that's treating them better.

And so visa workers, in general,

are a much more vulnerable population.

There was a forced labor case

in Louisiana

where workers were essentially trapped

inside of a crawfish company.

They couldn't go anywhere.

Employers would keep their passports.

And the Signal case,

at least 100 Indian workers

who were on an oil rig,

and it was a trafficking case, and

a $14 million settlement was won.

That's on the extreme end,

but there's countless ones of those.

Those employers are talking about

these backstretch workers

as if they're really essential

to making this whole industry run.

And they're so valuable that

they're getting paid $12.50 an hour.

There's a bit

of a disconnect there.

From the employer's perspective,

the biggest problem is

you have uncertainty

about the availability

of your workforce.

In the H-2B Program,

there are only 66 000 annual visas

available each year.

So, it is a competitive system.

The vast majority of H-2B visas

go to the landscaping industry.

And so, we're competing for the

remainder with every other industry.

If you are a horse trainer,

you want to know how many horses

I'm going to be able to train.

How many horses can I accept

from owners?

And if you don't know,

I'm going to have grooms,

and hot walkers,

and exercise riders on the ground.

How in the world

can you accept these horses

that you don't even know

if you can feed?

So it's terribly difficult

for trainers.

You have a very hard time

finding Americans

that want to do this kind of work.

And the visas are our only option.

There's a lot of uncertainty

about whether or not we're going

to have the labor force that we need.

The guest worker program

needs to be reformed.

First, you need stronger protections

into the law.

We also need

stronger enforcement

from the federal government

and from state governments

where it's appropriate.

But also, there is a dire need

in certain industries

for these seasonal workers,

and that's why we've got

to strike the right balance.

The thoroughbred industry is strangled

by the immigration system.

Our problem is

that the issue is political.

Immigration reform has become

more complicated

because it's become more partisan.

Democrat-backed policies have left

our borders overrun,

our detention facilities overwhelmed.

U-S-A, U-S-A!

Right now,

you have a Republican Party

that's still dominated by Donald Trump

and his way of thinking.

We need a wall right here.

This ain't a game. This is America.

And his number one political

punching bag was immigrants,

including a lot of the people

that come here to work.

Our country is full.

We want Mexico to stop.

The secretary of Homeland Security

calls for vastly more aggressive

enforcement of immigration laws

already on the books to reduce

the number of people here illegally.

Immigrants are welcome here.

We're joined together to celebrate

the extraordinarily successful

building of the wall

on the Southern border.

Immigration just became

a complete third rail issue

where anything having

to do with immigration,

it didn't matter if it was tech vizas

or dreamers or anything else,

all of a sudden

became something

that many Republicans

just wouldn't touch.

The Democratic Party has decided they

are the party of ill*gal immigration.

The hard right said, "No immigration

reform," and we're stuck.

Getting them to revisit this issue

has been very difficult.

So now, the Republican Party

platform has a plank

about reducing legal immigration to

the United States for the first time,

and that is

a very problematic feature,

if you're trying

to get to a deal.

President Biden introduced

his own immigration plan,

but that has really stalled

on Capitol Hill.

The country supports

immigration reform.

We should act. Let's argue over it.

Let's debate it, but let's act.

One, two, three.

A horse trainer,

a horse farm owner,

they don't want to necessarily

put their neck out, and say,

"I utilize the H-2B visa program.

All my workers are

foreign guests workers,"

because it's

a politically very hot issue.

It's not super politically

appropriate to be construed

as, in any way, un-American.

I voted for Donald Trump.

I voted for Obama.

I voted for Bill Clinton.

I voted for George Bush.

I just pick who's the best for the,,,

at the time that makes sense.

And I think

that's what most Americans,,,

They just want something

that makes sense.

The biggest problem is

when they have to go back.

A lot of them have to go back

and it's hard to get them right back.

They run into complications there, so

it's hard for everybody to be honest.

They're here.

They deserve a job and a life.

Horse racing has been devastated

by the lack of help.

They're going to have to come up

with a way

to get more people into the country

and have a program set up

to where they can fill these jobs.

It shouldn't be complicated

when you look at it that way.

I love this country.

You have many opportunities.

You make money. You can help

your family and your country.

Those feelings

that make you happy.

It's something

you feel in your heart.

And the most important reform

that could bring together a bipartisan

coalition to accomplish H-2B reform

is a path to citizenship

for these workers.

And I think the United States,

frankly, owes it to those workers

who have contributed so much

to our economy

to provide an opportunity for them

to become permanent residents

and ultimately

citizens of the United States.

The thing about being a permanent

resident is that you can speak back.

You're not deportable. You can hold

employers to higher standard.

It's not just about having people

come here

and using them up just as people

who are bodies out there working,

but showing them the respect,

I think they deserve,

as people that are contributing

to the economy of our country,

and putting them

on that path to citizenship.

My father was able to obtain

his green card in 1989.

In 2004,

he went out on his own

to become a trainer

and a horse owner.

He has always loved horses.

Til this day,

he still tells my mother

that he wants to buy

more horses.

He still goes to the backstretch

with friends and anybody

that comes around through

the seasons, through the meets.

Horse racing is

why he stayed in America.

He loves it. It's a great sport.

It definitely helps the immigrants

first, because it employs them.

It's one of the biggest places

where they go to get employed.

I do think they deserve

a path for citizenship,

because they work so hard.

They've been doing this

for many, many years.

They deserve to get it.