President Trump's Jan. 20 return to the White House will be a milestone day for the country that figures to soon bring changes for racing, as his foreign worker and immigration policies appear likely to again impact the Thoroughbred industry in the United States.
Based on the policies of his first term, as well as his campaign promises this time around, President Trump plans to crack down on illegal immigrants and to reduce access to legal foreign workers—policies that would likely have an impact on tracks, farms, and trainers across the country. Experts on foreign workers believe such changes could cause legal foreign workers to feel intimidated and choose to return home or influence the decisions of potential workers from other countries to seek work here through H2-A or H2-B visas.
The policies will likely soon take shape as many political analysts anticipate President Trump to act swiftly.
In looking at his first-term policies in these areas, the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank, found that President Trump was "wildly successful in reducing legal immigration." It said that during his first administration, Trump wanted to cut legal immigration by 63% and the administration "reduced the number of green cards (permanent resident cards) issued to people abroad by at least 418,453 and the number of non-immigrant visas by at least 11,178,668 during his first term through November 2020." The COVID-19 pandemic also played a role in that decline.
Oklahoma-based immigration attorney Will Velie, who works with foreign backstretch workers, said the policies and changes in priorities led to shortages in available workers for the industry.
"There were the policy changes, which were bad, but the worst part of it—and part of it was COVID—is that he dismantled the machine," Velie said. "The policies changed but he also kind of made it to where the agency no longer really worked. He took all the people that issued the adjudications and issued the work cards...he took all those people and he put them all toward enforcement. The daily operations kind of just seized to a halt. What used to take 90 days would take 18 months."
The process for H-2A (temporary agricultural workers) and H-2B (temporary nonagricultural workers, that also include jobs such as hotel workers, resort workers, construction, and landscaping) requires employers to post their jobs for U.S. citizens first. If the positions go unfilled by U.S. citizens, then they can be filled by temporary foreign workers.
Craig McDougal, a partner at the same law firm as Velie, can't see a time when U.S. workers will magically fill these positions.
"There's just not a lot of Americans beating down the door to go work on the backside of the track," McDougal said.
If that's the case, any reduction in foreign workers will impact the industry. McDougal said that last year there was significant demand for H-2 visas, for which the H-2A variety has no cap while H-2B offered 33,000 spots in both the spring and the fall. He estimates there were 150,000 applicants just in the spring. The Department of Labor recently allocated 64,716 supplemental H-2B visas for fiscal year 2025.
Backstretch jobs at the tracks are considered nonagricultural (H-2B), so there is a limit to how many people can enter the country temporarily through H-2B. In that program, the sport competes with other seasonal industries for workers. If U.S. citizens continue to pass on backstretch opportunities, and new limits further restrict foreign workers coming to the States, the industry could face a worker shortage.
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association has lobbied successfully for the industry and figures to be atop this issue in the years ahead. Velie thinks there could be an unofficial "carve-out" for the industry in which the administration would trust tracks and local authorities to work collaboratively to fill its labor needs while removing any bad apples.
Of course, foreign worker policies are just one of the many issues the industry is concerned about. There were other important industry changes that occurred during the first Trump administration.
- In 2017 the U.S. Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service announced they would modernize regulations regarding the withholding and reporting of pari-mutuel proceeds. The NTRA had worked toward these changes for years and welcomed these updates that positively impacted horseplayers.
- The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 included bonus depreciation on equipment. The American Horse Council noted that farm equipment used in a business operation, as well as breeding stock and racehorses, would benefit from the robust deduction. Jen Shah, a certified public accountant for Dean Dorton in Lexington where she leads the firm's equine practice, wrote in BloodHorse in 2019 that federal depreciation incentives included with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act continued to benefit Thoroughbred horse and farm owners.
- In December 2019 President Trump signed into law a provision that extends three-year tax depreciation for all racehorses, a provision that received bipartisan support.
- In one of his final acts of his first term, President Trump in December 2020 signed into law an omnibus bill that included approval of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, a piece of landmark industry legislation that has overhauled oversight of racing's safety issues, anti-doping efforts, and medication control oversight.
While other industry issues are certain to come up over the next four years, with so much emphasis on immigration policy during the campaign, it's the issue on the minds of many in the industry.
Trainer Graham Motion is not in support of allowing any criminal element to remain in the country but is concerned about the prospect of a sweeping executive order that removes people who are properly working in the U.S. He believes such a move would cripple racing as he estimates that the industry labor force is 80%-90% foreign workers.
"In a sport or a business that depends on immigrants, it seems shortsighted to think that more aggressive policies toward our workforce is what we're looking for," he said.
Trainer Dale Romans, named president of the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association in November, said besides the properly documented foreign workers there are some illegal foreign workers at tracks around the country. But he added of the incoming administration, "I think everybody's apprehensive about it, and I just hope that what he's talking about is getting rid of the criminals and leaving our industry alone."
Romans lamented the difficulty in getting visas and said he'd like the government to make it easier for employers to legally hire laborers but it's "darn near impossible now," he said.
Velie and McDougal have been visiting tracks trying to equip backstretch workers with as much information as possible. Legal workers appear to understand they have solid footing.
"Whoever is disseminating the information in that space is brilliant, because every single person we talked with is convinced that Trump's only going after the 'bad guys' and not going after them," Velie said. "It was bizarre. I'm talking about undocumented people who have open deportation orders that are here, and every person down to the last—and maybe they're just telling themselves that so they don't freak out—but they just all said, 'Oh no. He's not going after us.'"
McDougal said both workers and the industry will adjust but currently there are many unknowns.
"My worry is that I don't know how large the deportation orders are going to be," McDougal said. "Logistically there are lots of things that are going to be problematic for them to implement."
Romans is also worried about what will happen when those with visas go home and are ready to return to the States.
"We worry about the renewal process when it comes time for them to go home and then come back, what's going to happen? H-2B has been the only thing that fits our industry, and it's a cumbersome process to get one, and it's only for 10 months," he said. "There has to be a better way."
