TX Agriculture Commissioner: ICE Raiding Packing Plants Will Raise Beef Prices

On Friday’s broadcast of “NewsNation Now,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller (R) said that recent ICE raids in Kansas are going to cause beef prices to rise and “this is not a good way to lower beef prices by shutting down our packing plants.” Miller said, “[T]his imported beef…has not dropped the price of hamburger. … The only ones making any money are the big packers, buying cheaper meat and selling it for the same price. But this has caused ranchers to receive $3-500 a head less for their beef. And ICE, this week, raided three packing plants in Kansas, shut them down. So, now, our cattle are backing up, and we’re receiving lower prices. And this is driving up the price of beef for the consumer, because there’s less on the shelf. So, this is just a huge comedy of errors.” Later, he added, “Well, when Trump first came into office, he said, we’ll do a crackdown on illegals, we’re going to arrest the criminals and the lawbreakers. And what did they do? They went out to dairies and started arresting agriculture workers, and we couldn’t get the cows milked. I raised Cain, a lot of other ag. commissioners did. They finally stopped that, and said, no, we’re not after those guys, we really want to go get the criminals, and those people aren’t criminals. Well, it’s been kind of quiet. Except, recently, ICE raided three packing plants in Garden City, Liberal, and Dodge City, Kansas. Well, that causes huge problems, because it’s a ripple effect. The cattle start backing up, we can’t sell them. So, the price goes down. But, on the other end, consumers can’t get beef. So, the grocery stores go up on beef prices when we’re trying to lower beef prices. … So, this is not a good way to lower beef prices by shutting down our packing plants.” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett