Red Rover … Red Rover

Let Juan come over!

Red Rover … Red Rover

Let Abeo come over!

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            We’ve been horseback much of the week.

            No, we are aren’t branding yet. We moved our cow herd in our planned, ongoing rotation program. Wednesday was a bigger day than expected, but the cows are moved save where gates are or will be left open by monument seekers and city challenged adventurers who seem to think their lives exist in a vacuum of importance.

            The result is an ongoing challenge of patience and competing demands.

            What was accomplished, though, was more than just moving a cow herd to fresh pasture. Every time miles and hours are spent horseback much more is revealed than expected. Adjustments to time in pasture, concepts of pasture infrastructure improvements, or reminders of preferential use patterns are revealed. It just wouldn’t happen by viewing the pasture through the windshield of a pickup.

            It is also cathartic.

            A horse is simply a good partner in thought sessions. He provides a tangential link to what partnerships with our managed surroundings can truly be. Invariably, I come away with a better perspective of many things.

            Let Juan come over!

            After church last Sunday, a trip to the ranch was necessary. Our bull, the swimmer, needed attention and feed. His senseless stunt of jumping into a steel rim storage caused as much grief to the ranch operation as it did to him. He needs daily attention and worry.

            Arriving at the 116 interchange and our off ramp, though, was met with flashing lights and the gathering of officials from three agencies. Since it was ranch property where the junta was taking place, a discussion was in order.

            “What’s going on?”

            It was revealed that a missing person’s vehicle had been located with the tracks of the missing headed to parts unknown. Two deputies with their tongues extended were hanging onto their vehicles having tracked the person to a locked gate several miles north. More Border Patrol officials were still out, yet another, was leaving upon our arrival. He was central in the initial discussion.

            The missing person search would go on in the backdrop (in fact it would go on for two more full days before being called off with no results), but the agent’s conversation became a higher point of focus. He wasn’t even a local assigned agent. He was from Lordsburg and had stopped to offer help when he, too, noticed the flashing lights.

            It was learned he was assigned to the horse patrol in the CBP Lordsburg operation. Why he wasn’t attending to his assigned duties was what is happening across the entire southern border. He was ferrying illegals apprehended in Lordsburg to El Paso for further processing. All attention has been refocused simply dealing with the daily assaults by family groups at points of entry.

            “Is anybody mounted and riding?”

            “Nope.”

            “So, you are ferrying people to El Paso,” was the emerging point of concern. “Are your colleagues similarly reassigned?”

            The answer was yes, and the cartels are smiling. The El Paso Sector has joined the Rio Grande Valley and the Tucson Sectors as America’s soft underbelly with only a conditionally protected international boundary.

            Just days before, the agent’s Sector Chief, Aaron Hull, reported to the Dona Ana County Commission that arrivals are up 600% in his duty area in this fiscal year. The avalanche of arrivals is heavily weighted to families in comparison to prior years and his agency is compelled to release them. They are simply being overrun without the ability or infrastructure to handle the assault. The great majority, over 90%, will never make their pledged court hearings.

            It is a security debacle, and it needs not daily, but hourly attention and worry.

            Let Abeo come over!

            Here, locally, in the Las Cruces area, the newly reconstructed Las Cruces High School facility was the site of sanctuary lodging for an unstated number of illegals over the Easter weekend. The result of the hospitality and kindness of the local tax payers and residents was the trashing of this institution of high school excellence.

            Those who are familiar with the hygienic practices of many Latin American uneducated masses know there is a lingering propensity not to flush toilet paper. Rather, it is tossed in a can, or in the case of no can, simply thrown on the floor.

            The place was trashed. Paper and trash everywhere. Feces was spread on walls and on floors. Further, there is now a suggestion that it will take more than $15,000 to sanitize the place.

            And, this is from a population that not only isn’t ruled by childhood vaccination requirements, but often goes without immunizations at all!

            In a check on the CDC measles update, the tally shows there are 704 cases of reported measles since January 1. That is the largest yearly number since the disease was eliminated from our country in 2000.

            Mumps are similar. The problem has now been reported in 41 states, and the number of cases, 736, is the largest number since 1989 when protective protocols were installed.

            Interestingly, the missing person incident prompted the point made by a ranking Dona Ana County sheriff’s deputy to describe a briefing he sat through the previous morning. He was aghast at the nationalities of illegals being apprehended.

“There are people from Ghana, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Egypt, and China being caught!” he said. “Those places that have Ebola and those other diseases!”

No, Dorothy, you aren’t in Kansas anymore, and it ain’t just Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador that pose biosecurity risks to our population. Leaving unattended gates open has consequences. The problem is getting the congress of the United States to perform their sworn obligations. It is also time to recognize their actions have us on the brink of health catastrophes of historical proportions.

Secure our border now!!

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “We have pleaded until we have no trust in this congress.”

Frank DuBois says see Asylum-seekers processed in Las Cruces tops 3,000