Tragedy stirs look at illegal farmworkers
By Elizabeth Ganga and Leah Rae • eganga@lohud.com • June 14, 2009

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It's common knowledge around the horse farms of northern Westchester and Putnam that many of the workers who muck out stalls and do other hard labor in service of the horses and their well-heeled owners are illegal immigrants.

They've been far less visible than the men who wait for landscaping and contracting jobs on Main Street, but one deadly incident involving a farmworker has triggered the same uproar over illegal immigration that has long surrounded the area's population of day laborers.

Both are simultaneously being recruited for economic reasons and resented for their presence. Some who work on the farms are skilled specialists who follow the horse-show circuit; others go from barn to barn looking for work caring for horses.

"These farms are a part of, I think, New York life, and certainly a prominent part of the upper classes of New York," said the Rev. Richard Witt, executive director of the Rural and Migrant Ministry, based in Poughkeepsie.

Horse farms tend to employ only a handful of workers, he said, who sometimes live in remote areas and become reliant on employers for housing and transportation. They may be hired to work at racetracks, polo grounds or in private stables.

On Monday, a woman and her daughter were killed when, according to police, a drunken illegal immigrant struck them with a pickup truck.

Zacaria Conses-Garcia, 35, a Guatemalan who has worked on horse farms in Florida and North Salem, was indicted Friday on two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide. Lori Donohue, 37, and her daughter, Kayla, 8, were struck as they were leaving the girl's dance class at Seven Stars School of Performing Arts in Brewster.

The truck was registered in Wellington, Fla., to Valerie Renihan, a trainer and self-described "lifelong horse woman" whose Facebook page reported that she had moved her northern Westchester business to Staysail Farm in North Salem on June 1. Renihan's name is also on the lease for the house in Southeast where Conses-Garcia was living with three or four other men who, neighbors said, traveled back and forth to work each day in a white pickup truck with Florida plates.

The fatal crash has broken through the carefully maintained silence about the pervasive employment of illegal immigrants as laborers on horse farms.

The president of the American Horse Council has estimated that 50 percent to 75 percent of workers in the horse industry nationally are illegal immigrants. But, however necessary their labor is to the operation of farms in the area, it's a subject that people who move in those circles have tried to keep out of the public discourse. People in the horse world will rarely talk on the record about the issue for fear of bringing down immigration and tax authorities on their businesses.

And the workers themselves, never very likely to talk about their status or employment conditions, are a subset within the subset of immigrant laborers.

Horse farms "can be a very isolated place," said Witt, the minister. "It's a very lonely life, from what I've witnessed and heard."

Every month, during the winter especially, as many as 15 immigrant workers walk up the driveway of the Blue Chip Riding Club in Patterson asking for work, said the owner, Virginia Smith. Owners sometimes hire illegal workers because they can't or don't want to do the hard physical labor of cleaning out the stalls, said Smith, who does the work herself with her daughters and cousin and hires young people who ride to help out.

While many have worked on farms, few know how to properly care for the horses, she said. But still, few native-born people will do the work, she said.

"These guys want to work because they need the money to support their families, wherever they are," Smith said.

Brian Harner of Stonegate Farm in Bedford said he has had the same experience with workers walking up his driveway in search of work.

"I've hired day laborers before in the past. I have no idea if they are legal or illegal," he said. "I imagine they're illegal."

The intense reaction to the crash circulating on the Web and in e-mails has included calls to contact members of Congress, the group responsible for federal immigration policy.

One e-mail urged people to call Rep. John Hall, D-Dover Plains, saying "They can ignore one or two people but they can't ignore all of us."

"Our town has been taken over," the e-mail says. "Would you let your children walk through the town of Brewster? Would you yourself walk through? ... WE pay the taxes and carry the burden of our community. Now we have to bury two of our own."

Hall said he wanted a comprehensive overhaul of immigration that would include border-security measures and a new worker verification system.

"America's immigration policy is a complex issue," he said in a statement, adding it's "crystal clear that it must be reformed, those here illegally who are caught breaking the law need to be deported, and that businesses hiring illegals should be punished."

Bart Campbell, who works in Southeast near the suspect's address, said he was wary of the familiar backlash over illegal immigration.

"You have a tendency to think, 'It's a Guatemalan problem,' " he said. "It's an alcohol problem. It's a combined thing. But you know, guys like you and me, they get drunk and kill people too."

Campbell said much of the tension in town would dissipate if the workers had a designated hiring spot away from Main Street, where hundreds wait at the curbs for work long into the day. He also believes that changes in the immigration system are necessary. "I think lot of these people should be able to get cards easier. Not easy, but easier," he said. "It is so expensive and so difficult to be legal that they just can't do it."

The American Horse Council has put immigration reform at the top of its list of national legislative priorities in the hope that temporary worker programs will allow the industry to legalize its work force. The group supports a bill that would create a five-year pilot program to legalize agricultural workers and another to increase the amount of temporary worker visas available.

"The great thing about this is it is supported by both the worker advocates and the industry," said Ben Pendergrass, the legislative director of the Horse Council.

Local owners of horse farms would likely agree.

"It would be better if the guy coming up your driveway was legal," Smith said, "so if you need somebody, you could hire them without getting into trouble."


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