EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN
When illegal immigration is discussed, rarely if ever, is anything spoken about except for the illegal aliens themselves. However, the multitude of issues that stem from the genesis of illegal immigration is tenfold. The obvious issues of crime, child exploitation, finite social services and the list goes on. Today, I want to talk about the issue of disease but not the disease that illegal aliens bring to the U.S. and harms our citizens, but the disease brought to our land that will have devastating impact on our cattle and livestock.
I just read an interesting article HERE about the protentional decimation of our cattle and livestock industry in the United States. A rancher from South Dakota, Todd Wilkinson, spoke openly about the frightening odds that one of the millions of illegal aliens that cross our borders annually will carry foot and mouth disease (FMD) into our nation. Wilkinson is the president-elect of the National Cattleman’s Beef Association so he would be considered an expert on this issue. Wilkinson said that it is only a matter of time before FMD crosses the southern border.
There are so many horrible things coming from the Biden open borders. Can you imagine if Wilkinson is correct? What would happen to our nation with most of our cattle, sheep, pigs and other hoofed animals being completely decimated. Wilkinson stated in this article, “Our border is just so porous, if that disease comes in, it’s just going to devastate the industry. And frankly, I don’t know how it’s been kept out to this point.” Wilkinson continued to say how this will enter our country, “It can come in, certainly, with animals. It can also come in on a meat product. So there’s a number of ways it’s going to come in. But the most likely way it’s going to come in is some manure on the bottom of somebody’s boot.”
The BBC reported in 2001 that over 6 million pigs, cows, and sheep in the UK were slaughtered with an economic impact of between 12 and 18 billion. The U.S. Department of Agriculture believes an agroterrorism event would cost the U.S. 228 billion.
More than sixty percent of all livestock entering the U.S. crosses the southern border at Santa Teresa/San Jeronimo in New Mexico. New Mexico ranchers Alisa Ogden and Loren Patterson believe, “…it’s a matter of time.” What Ogden said next is the crutch of the problem with open borders, “It’s a huge unknown, you never know what’s going to be coming… It’s the unknown, and not being able to monitor what you’re producing, food for others."
The unknown is the frightening part of the open border chaos. Certainly, there are numerous criminals and terrorists that make their way through the system undetected after being arrested. Those scenarios that are occurring daily in the Border Patrol are maddening but it is the unprotected border that allows millions of unknown individuals and diseases into our nation that is the most concerning.
We have no idea who these millions of people are that go undetected. But I can tell you for sure, the unknown that Ogden spoke about will cause extreme pain, sorrow, and suffering in our country.
Interesting perspective! I know that traveling to most foreign countries we always have to step on the sanitation carpet while disembarking and international flight. The sanitation carpet is there for the sole purpose of preventing the introduction of FMD. There's no need for sanitation carpets at our airports as long as we have millions crossing our borders illegally... what good would it do?