U.S. officials have once again closed the border to cattle from Mexico, due to an “unacceptable northern advancement” of a flesh-eating parasite that infects warmblooded animals.
The border was closed to cattle for a few months starting late last year after the detection of a case in southern Mexico. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Mexican authorities then worked together to establish new animal monitoring protocols and reopen the border earlier this year.
On Sunday, USDA Secretary Brook Rollins announced the border would close again to cattle.
“Once we see increased surveillance and eradication efforts, and the positive results of those actions, we remain committed to opening the border for livestock trade,” Rollins said in a statement. “This is not about politics or punishment of Mexico, rather it is about food and animal safety.”
But Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters Monday her government has done everything it can to contain the spread of the parasite, and she called the USDA’s seemingly sudden closure of the border “unfair.”
“Mexico isn’t anyone’s piñata,” Sheinbaum said.
The parasitic fly larvae, called the New World Screwworm, can be deadly. It was initially found in November in a cow near the Mexico-Guatemala border, leading to the months-long closure that started last year. Mexican officials say that, this time, the border will reopen after 15 days.
According to the USDA, the New World Screwworm “has been recently detected in remote farms with minimal cattle movement as far north as Oaxaca and Veracruz, about 700 miles away from the U.S. border.”
But the new measure affects ranchers all over Mexico, including in Arizona’s southern neighbor, Sonora. Many farmers in Sonora make their living by exporting cattle over the Sonora-Arizona border, and are close to 1,000 miles away from where the northernmost cases have been detected.
