Employer sanctions affecting area businesses

09:10 PM Mountain Standard Time on Monday, January 21, 2008

azfamily.com

PHOENIX - The new employer sanctions law is slowly starting to hit area businesses.

Hundreds of workers at one of the Valley's most popular sporting attractions face being deported.

Many of them are not waiting around for that to happen.

Turf Paradise is the third-largest sporting attraction in the Valley.

Behind the Diamondbacks and Cactus League Baseball as a whole, but without the workers who make this place run, the track is in trouble.

Excitement is building. It is the final race of the day at Turf Paradise.

Werner rNexinger has been betting here since the glory days of1958.

But times are changing at the track. The horses and jockeys are still here, but the stable hands who clean and feed the animals -are leaving in large numbers because they are afraid of the new immigrations laws.

Owners like Stacy Campo started seeing the exodus when the new laws hit the books a few weeks back and says she's afraid of what the next few weeks will bring.

Werner sure hopes this old track will make it, maybe even get back to the glory days.

But like the last race of the day it is just too close to call.

Apparently many of the workers are heading back to Mexico trying to get the proper paperwork to come back.

They are afraid that if they're caught here first they'll never get that chance. Arizona's horse racing industry brings in $330 million a year and 80 % of it is generated right here.
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