USDA And Mexico: Pullout Spells Loss For Border Economy And Some Comments on Wilderness

Last year the federal government banned U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors from entering Mexico at five Texas border crossings to inspect U.S.-bound cattle. That decision has had a huge economic impact on small border towns in Texas, in particular the city of Presidio. It sits across from Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico. The international port of entry here had been the largest for cattle imports from Mexico into the United States for eight decades. Until last year, the USDA routinely sent inspectors across the border to a state-of-the-art building on the other side of the Rio Grande in Ojinaga. But the ban has had real economic consequences here. Cattle broker Salvador Baeza at the Presidio stockyard says the economic fallout in Presidio totals $5 million and counting. “PresidIo’s losing a lot of money that’s supposed to stay in town. The stores are losing money," Baeza said. "Everybody’s losing money.” Here’s why. The inspection pen on the Texas side of the Rio Grande is a makeshift affair that can’t handle more than 700 head per week, a far cry from the 2,500 every day before the USDA decision. So Mexican producers — among the largest exporters of cattle to the United States, accounting for 25 percent of all beef imports from Mexico — are now trucking their cattle to a USDA inspection site across the border in New Mexico, a rough journey of four hours. Moreover the four hour journey to Santa Teresa, N.M., stresses the animals to the point they lose weight and therefore value on the trip...more

Senators Udall & Heinrich tell us everything is safe on the border and thus a Wilderness designation which impedes law enforcement should not concern us.  After all, federal employees are allowed to do their inspections at Santa Teresa, so everything must be safe.  However, according to this article:

APHIS agents have received clearance to inspect cattle at the Santa Teresa crossing in New Mexico and the Columbus Bridge in Laredo. Both the cities, APHIS says, have security measures in place – including bunkers and exit strategies – that the other facilities currently don’t offer.

Seems kind of weird the feds need bunkers for their employees while the politicians are telling us everything is really safe. I guess a Wilderness on the border will be fine...as long as the BLM provides bunkers and exit strategies to any visitors.