The Biden administration has agreed to reimburse farmers and ranchers across 33 Texas counties for damages sustained in the surge of illegal immigration and drug smuggling at the U.S.-Mexico border.
In an unprecedented move, the Department of Agriculture announced an initiative this week that would provide financial assistance to landowners “currently impacted by damage to fields and farming infrastructure,” though the government news release skirted mentioning what had caused the widespread damages.
“We understand that the field and farming infrastructure damages along the border are costly and have a negative impact on our natural resources that our farmers and ranchers work hard to conserve,” Kristy Oates, a state conservationist for the department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Texas, said in a statement. “Our field offices are ready to assist eligible producers with technical and financial assistance.”
Every county along the 1,250 miles that Texas spans the international border, as well as those as far as 100 miles away from the border, will be eligible to have 26 types of damages covered. The reimbursements were requested by state and national organizations starting last spring as illegal immigration soared through 2021 to the highest level ever seen.
“I hear daily from property owners who have suffered damages due to the border crisis,” said Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican whose district stretches along two-thirds of the Texas border. “These dollars will have real impact to our ranchers and farmers, who have footed the cost of this crisis. … Providing this relief has been a priority for me, and I appreciate my colleagues for joining me in this effort to put our farmers first.”
As illegal immigration and drug smuggling, both of which are facilitated by Mexican cartels, began dramatically increasing in President Joe Biden’s first few months in office, landowners began seeing people walking through their crops, breaking down fences, and invading family homes — more than the norm. Texas saw the large majority of illegal crossings in 2021, more than Arizona, California, and New Mexico combined.
Members of the South Texans’ Property Rights Association, a 500-member group whose properties encompass 5 million acres, told the Washington Examiner in April said that they were used to seeing people trespass on their land, but never to this extent. Rancher Whit Jones said illegal immigrants ended up lost on his land 80 miles north of the border because they were kicked out of a smuggler’s vehicle and told to walk several miles around Border Patrol’s highway checkpoints in Hebbronville and Falfurrias, Texas, and were unable to find their way back to the road.
The Texas Farm Bureau, backed by farm bureaus in all 49 other states and the national bureau, wrote the secretaries at the departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security, and Interior asking for financial help and a security solution to stop the illegal entries into the United States.
“We have been listening to the concerns of our members and hearing how their livelihoods are being affected by the surge on the border. Farm and ranch families, many of whom have owned land for generations, are bearing the brunt of this unprecedented influx and have never seen a more dire situation,” the farm bureaus wrote in a joint letter sent in June.
By September, more than 120 landowners near Del Rio, Texas, had agreed to let the state erect a fence on their property in an effort to keep out people and prevent damage to their fields, livestock, and infrastructure.
Page Day, a professional outfitter who lets hunters from around the world pay to hunt exotic animals on his land, said cuts by smugglers through his fences have cost him thousands of dollars, as well as up to $10,000 for every animal that has escaped through the breached fences or gates that smugglers left open as they passed through.
This new USDA initiative will allow farmers and ranchers to expense costs for more than two dozen types of costs sustained, including fencing repairs, livestock fatalities, irrigation, and crop planting, starting between Wednesday and July 5, according to the USDA. The program is being funded by the Environmental Quality Incentive Program.
“As the border crisis continues, we recognize short-term solutions, like the EQIP funding program, are needed. We hope USDA will continue to work with Texas farmers and ranchers to ensure this program meets their unique needs,” Texas Farm Bureau President Russell Boening wrote in an email. “However, we cannot stress enough the critical importance of acting on a long-term solution. Action is needed now to secure the border, first and foremost. That is the only way this crisis can truly be addressed.”
Gonzales has introduced two bills that would create new reimbursement programs. The RAPID Act would repurpose funding from the American Rescue Plan to instead go to covering damages, and the SAFE Act would create a grant program for families on the border to enhance security on their properties and get damages reimbursed.
Counties eligible for aid include Brewster, Brooks, Cameron, Crockett, Culberson, Dimmit, Duval, Edwards, El Paso, Frio, Hidalgo, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, Jim Hogg, Jim Wells, Kenedy, Kinney, Kleberg, La Salle, Live Oak, Maverick, McMullen, Pecos, Presidio, Reeves, Starr, Sutton, Terrell, Uvalde, Val Verde, Webb, Willacy, Zapata, and Zavala.
