Visa

Tuesday's immigration raid at Delta Downs--which resulted in the reported apprehension of 84 undocumented individuals--reminds industry stakeholders once again of a frustrating conundrum. On the one hand, they must navigate an environment of ramped-up immigration enforcement, and the potential that what happened at Delta Downs could happen at any other racetrack around the country. On the other, they face a long-broken system that makes sourcing legal immigrant workers a bureaucratic nightmare. "It's insanely difficult," said trainer Doug O'Neill, about a visa system that's necessary to properly staff the racetrack backstretch....

Major immigration reform has been talked about for decades, but torpedoed legislation is as far as that has gone. Indeed, President Ronald Reagan was still just in his second term when he signed the last comprehensive immigration reform bill successfully steered through Congress. Amid the cavalcade of immigration-related actions that the current administration has sanctioned, however, the possibility has appeared for that trend to be bucked. In the process, it opens the door for some of the nation's backstretch immigrant workforce to potentially find themselves on a new pathway towards...