Immigration Watch International (2): Migrants exploiting border wall gaps contaminate crops, threaten nation's food supply

Monday, January 16, 2023

Migrants exploiting border wall gaps contaminate crops, threaten nation's food supply

YUMA, Ariz. – The border crisis is jeopardizing the nation’s food security as migrants trespass through farmland, contaminating crops, two Arizona farmers with fields near the southern border told Fox News.

"There's obviously a food safety concern because our fields are monitored and audited and tested for different pathogens," Pasquinelli Produce Company President Alex Muller told Fox News. "If there's somebody that walks into our field and then we don't know about why we put up flags and kind of mark it out and we don’t harvest that."

"That hits the bottom line," Muller said. "It's not sustainable. It's not good for the country."

Yuma — the country's agricultural leader in leafy green production during the winter months — provides about 90% of the nation’s supply of romaine and iceberg lettuce, according to the Department of Agriculture. It supplies around 9 billion servings of leafy greens per year, but farmers fear they will lose crops as more migrants pass through the border wall's gaps and into their fields.

"We've gotten a fair amount of traffic through and around our fields and through the whole entire Yuma Valley," a fifth-generation farmer, Hank Auza, said. His properties cover several thousand acres with fields near Morelos Dam, where gaps in the border wall remain.

Then-Gov. Doug Ducey ordered construction of a container wall in August to plug those holes. But the state agreed to remove the shipping containers by early January as a result of a federal lawsuit.

"Where the gaps are opens up to more farm ground for them to walk across," a fifth-generation farmer, Hank Auza, told Fox News. "We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just on our farm for food safety."

Yuma migrant crossings increased 171% between 2021 and 2022, according to Customs and Border Protection. About 1 million migrants have crossed Arizona's southern border during the Biden presidency.

"This is the largest humanitarian disaster we've had in this country," Auza said. "And part of the country is happy that it's happening. I don't get why."

A neighboring farmer lost nearly $100,000 after a handful of migrants hid on his land for a week, Auza told Fox News. He couldn't harvest the affected crops in case they were contaminated with pathogens that could lead to foodborne illness.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/migrants-exploiting-border-wall-gaps-contaminate-crops-threaten-nations-food-security-arizona-farmers-say

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http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.

The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:

1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.

2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.

3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.

4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.

5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.

6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.

I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.

Immigration Watch International (2)

Monday, January 16, 2023

Migrants exploiting border wall gaps contaminate crops, threaten nation's food supply

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