Ranchers in Sonora are asking for the border to reopen to cattle after months of being unable to export their animals.
The border region between Arizona and Mexico remains free from the New World screwworm, despite the parasite's recent arrival in Texas.
Even so, the entire U.S.-Mexico border has been closed to cattle for nearly all of the past year, an effort by the United States to stop the northward spread of the parasite, which has been making its way through Mexico since late 2024.
Now, the screwworm is on both sides of the border. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has confirmed nine cases in the United States, mostly in Texas.
The president of the ranchers' union in Sonora, Juan Ochoa Valenzuela, is urging the United States to reopen the border to cattle. Because the parasite is now present in both countries, Ochoa Valenzuela said the border should re-open with enhanced inspections to check animals for the parasite.
"Closing the border was a mistake," Ochoa Valenzuela. "We've seen a big hit on the industry in both countries."
The border closure, which has barred Mexican cattle from the United States for much of last year and all of this year, has been difficult on Sonora's ranchers. Many raise their cattle for export to the United States and have been barred from doing so. In the United States, feedlots have seen reduced cattle flows, and the cattle supply has hit record lows, driving up beef prices.
In Sonora, cattle are inspected as they come across state borders from elsewhere in Mexico. That has kept the state free from cases of the parasite, even as it's been documented in other Mexican states that border the United States, Ochoa Valenzuela said.
"Sonora has the best sanitary status of all of Mexico," Ochoa Valenzuela said. "Sonora has shown it knows how to manage health and genetics. Sonora would hope that in a situation like this one, that we as a state would be treated differently, and it wasn't like that."
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