An Arizona farmer whose property on the U.S.-Mexico border has been used by tens of thousands of immigrants to illegally sneak into the country says he fears a health epidemic is on the way.
"The fact is that we're going to be inundated with diseases in our population as well as livestock diseases,'' John Ladd, owner of the San Jose Ranch in Bisbee, said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
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"If I get a diseased cow out of Mexico, my ranch is done. We've been here 118 years and we haven't had any issues with that because we take care of our ranch.
"But what's coming up from Central America is absolutely my biggest fear in the disease issue.''
The United States is currently in the throes of a border crisis as thousands of immigrants — most of them young people — sneak across the border in a bid for a better life.
Thousands are now being detained in disease-ridden camps along the southern U.S. border.
So far, most of the attention has been focused on the Texas border, but Ladd believes the Arizona border is in danger of becoming just as troubled.
"Within the next couple of months the Border Patrol will deploy all of their assets to Texas and it's going to shift right back over here to Arizona,'' he said.
"Washington is so inept that they can't sit down and have a legitimate conversation about immigration."