New Mexico Border Authority, USDA prepare to reopen livestock crossing

SANTA TERESA, N.M. (KVIA) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Thursday the livestock crossing in Santa Teresa will reopen next week after more than two years. Santa Teresa's port is part of a series of reopenings amid New World screwworm prevention efforts.

The New Mexico Border Authority shared some of its facilities with USDA so it can bring in and prepare sterile flies before releasing them across the border within the three borderland states: New Mexico, Texas, and Chihuahua, Mexico.

ABC-7 spoke with Gerardo Fierro, executive director of NMBA, who said they have been coordinating with USDA to facilitate its headquarters in Santa Teresa for them to prepare for the reopening.

"We offered them office space and, on our commercial parking lot, a space for them to bring their equipment, a cold storage container, among other things, so they can bring sterile flies for their release," Fierro said.

The New Mexico Border Authority is an executive branch state agency

"We are a state government agency; we help other departments like the New Mexico Agriculture Department and we help them coordinate on the binational aspect," Fierro said. "They have their own channels of communication, but we are an office that is headquartered at the border, and we coordinate and collaborate with other state agencies or departments of the state of New Mexico, as well as with Texas and the state of Chihuahua."

"Our main goal now is for the cattle to start crossing again, to be good partners with the state of Chihuahua, to have that Mexican cattle coming across the border and going into the Texas and New Mexico feedlots and ranchers and generate more jobs for the whole region, not just here on the border, but also in Texas in the panhandle area and northern New Mexico," Fierro added. "I think it's going to be great; the hopes are to have that crossing open. It's part of what we do at the border, as Santa Teresa is the biggest and most important cattle crossing in the US, and I think it's important to have it reactivated, just as Sonora and Arizona did it about a month ago."