Children among those detained as massive law enforcement raid hit Idaho racetrack

Sally Krutzig and Carolyn Komatsoulis, The Idaho Statesman on Oct 20, 2025

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WILDER, Idaho — At La Catedral Arena in Wilder, a local horse racetrack popular among the Spanish-speaking community west of Boise, families enjoy the free raffles, vendors and food. It’s common to see hundreds of children there on a race day, said Nikki Ramirez-Smith, a Nampa-based immigration lawyer.

Those children, Ramirez-Smith said, ended up being among the targets of a Sunday raid on La Catedral Arena over what law enforcement called an investigation into illegal horse betting.

“It’s a family event,” Ramirez-Smith told the Idaho Statesman on Sunday. “It’s just like when Americans go to a rodeo. ... Some people are gambling, but it’s very few. I would say probably — I mean, I can’t even say how many — but 90% of people there are not gambling.”

Agencies participating in the raid included the FBI, the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office, Homeland Security, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Idaho State Police, the Idaho Department of Correction, the Nampa Police Department and the Caldwell Police Department, according to an FBI press release.

Ramirez-Smith said her phone began “blowing up” with clients begging her to come help them. She jumped in her car and spent hours with anxious families outside the racetrack.

Law enforcement rounded up every person at the racetrack, Ramirez-Smith said, including children. She said it was difficult to estimate an exact number, but guessed somewhere between 500 and 1,000 people.

They were zip-tied and questioned about their immigration status, Ramirez-Smith said. Children were taken from their parents, she said. All children held were eventually released, according to Ramirez-Smith, who observed children being released, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Members of the ACLU were in Wilder on Sunday assisting families affected by the raid by collecting information, answering questions and connecting those affected with resources.

“There’s going to be a lot of kids who were severely traumatized by being tied up,” Ramirez-Smith said.

A crowd that materialized at the racetrack, most of whom were seeking detained relatives, grew agitated after an hour with no answers.

“A lot of people were saying: ‘My kids are in there, my spouse is in there. What is happening? My family member is a U.S. citizen. Why are they still in there?’ ” Ramirez-Smith recalled.

Viviana Gonzalez, a Jerome native and Utah-based immigration attorney, told the Statesman she was a state away when her mom video-called on Facebook Messenger on Sunday afternoon from the racetrack. Her mom was crying, Gonzalez recalled in a phone interview. Gonzalez said the video call showed armed agents and people running.

Gonzalez’s mom, dad and 13-year-old sister were at the racetrack for their clothing business, El Color De Mi Tierra. The family goes to a lot of those events to run a booth, Gonzalez said.

After about 45 minutes on the call, agents took her dad behind white vans, Gonzalez told The Idaho Statesman. In the distance, she could see officers surrounding her father, she said.

“My mom, again, started to kind of have this panic. She didn’t know again what was happening,” Gonzalez said. “I could hear the people around her and I could hear the kids crying, scared, not knowing what was going to happen to their parents.”

Both her parents are permanent residents, Gonzalez said, and her sister is a U.S. citizen.

Gonzalez stayed on the phone for hours, until her mother and sister hung up once officers approached to zip-tie them, she said. Gonzalez called them repeatedly, for 15 to 20 minutes, until her sister was able to maneuver her hands and answer the phone, she said.

Gonzalez got on the road and started driving to Idaho, she said.

Her family was eventually released. They packed up their booth and drove back to Jerome, Gonzalez said. It was “really nice,” for Gonzalez, who had arrived back in the Gem State, to hug her family.

“This is not something that a U.S. citizen, 13-year-old girl, should ever experience,” Gonzalez said. “There were younger children than her that they saw were being zip-tied.”

The FBI announced shortly before 9 p.m. that it had arrested four people in connection with illegal gambling that allegedly occurred at the racetrack, including Ivan Tellez, 37, of Wilder; Samuel Bejarano, 37, of Nyssa, Oregon; Dayana Fajardo, 39, of Nyssa; and Alejandro Estrada, 56, of Buhl.

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