Not even cows can get a free pass across the U.S.-Mexico border.

The international cow crossing in Columbus, New Mexico, bears no resemblance to the official port of entry that sits about a quarter of a mile east. A simple chain link gate held shut by two padlocks, there is no around-the-clock immigration personnel.

A worn-out Mexican flag painted on a square metal sign reminds the cows and owners that they are engaged in international trade despite the modest surroundings.

Just like people, though, cows have to go through hoops to get into the United States.

Ranch hands Oscar Rodriguez, 44, and Reymundo Chavira, 40, explained the entire process to us on Thursday night at the Columbus Stockyards, where we met them as they sat waiting to load cattle in a truck coming from Las Cruces, NM. The stockyard is one large corral separated by the chain link fence that marks the international boundary at Columbus and Palomas, Chihuahua. The colors of the wooden corrals mark the two countries. On the south, they are painted red. On the north the wooden corrals are a faded white that looks like it’s been decades since the last paint job.

Ranch hand Oscar Rodriguez chews on the seeds of a mesquite tree pod while taking a break from his job herding cattle in Columbus, New Mexico. Photo by James Gregg.

When an owner needs to get cattle through, he calls U.S. and Mexican officials who arrive to handle the paperwork and inspection, they said. Mexican cattle owners clean their cows before bringing them to Columbus to make sure they are healthy and won’t bring in fleas or disease.

The process involves representatives from Customs and Border Protection, Mexican Customs, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Mexican Secretaria de Agricultura, Livestock, Rural Development, and Fish (SAGARPA)
New Mexico Livestock Board, according to the New Mexico Border Authority.

Nearly a third of all cattle imported each year from Mexico go through New Mexico through this corral in Columbus and a larger facility to the east in Santa Teresa that has capacity to process 5,000 cattle per day, according to the New Mexico Border Authority.

If the cows pass inspection and the paperwork looks good, the owner pays a tax for each cow, Rodriguez said. At that point, the cows mosey into crowded corrals where they await trucks that come to pick them up.

Reymundo Chavira waits for the truck he will load cattle onto to arrive. Photo by James Gregg.

Rodriguez and Chavira waited until nearly 7 p.m. Thursday night when Jesús Gonzalez, 42, arrived in his tractor-trailer to pick up the cattle. The Mexican cowboys guided the stubborn livestock up a ramp and into the truck by shaking “hot shot” sticks that make a rattling sound that scares the cattle. It took nearly 45 minutes to herd the 71 cattle into the truck.

His work done and with a blazing red sunset fading into black on the horizon, Rodriguez lit a cigarette and told us about how he entered the country illegally in the mid-1980s by walking across the line west of the corrals. Chavira said he walked across the Rio Grande from Juarez into El Paso in that same time period.

Both earned legal permanent residency through the amnesty of 1986. The vaqueros – cowboys – have worked throughout the Western United States in construction, agriculture fieldwork, in meat packing plants and at corrals like this one. Rodriguez lives with his wife and three kids in Palomas and crosses everyday at the legal port of entry to work. His family doesn’t have legal visas to cross. Chavira lives in Columbus with his wife and three kids. They earned their legal status about 11 years ago, he said.

As we said goodbye, both were headed home to their families in opposite directions. Rodriguez would go back to the legal port of entry and pass into Palomas while Chavira would drive to his house in Columbus. In the morning, they were scheduled to work in the fields west of Columbus.

As for the cows, well, their future looked rather bleak. Unlike people – who are rewarded for gaining passage with access to jobs, commerce and culture – these cows journey will have no happy ending.

Gonzalez drove them east to the stockyard in Santa Teresa Thursday night. Eventually, they will all end up at feedlots in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. The business of getting them through the border and to their destination, though, creates jobs for people like Gonzalez, Chavira and Rodriguez.

For more details about the cattle crossings, go to:

http://www.nmborder.com/livestock.html