Will the Feds Spray the Border?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The latest addition to the Border Patrol’s most-wanted list isn’t an illegal immigrant, but a plant.

Well, okay, a plant that could conceal illegal immigrants, the Patrol fears. The plant in question is Carrizo cane, an invasive weed that grows in dense thickets along the border. The Feds’ plan (which, predictably, has drawn some Agent Orange comparisons) was to spray the cane with the herbicide Imazapyr, but not everyone is thrilled about that:

A lawsuit accused the Department of Homeland Security of violating the National Environmental Policy Act regarding the now-delayed U.S. Border Patrol plans to conduct aerial spraying of an herbicide on carrizo (kah-DEE’-zoh) cane near the Rio Grande.

Residents of two Laredo neighborhoods on Tuesday sued DHS in a lawsuit which alleged the public wasn’t sufficiently notified about the spraying program, the Laredo Morning Times reported in a story for Wednesday’s editions.

 

So the Border Patrol has said it’ll wait to spray:

The Border Patrol agreed to delay aerial spraying of the herbicide, which was set to
begin Wednesday, until more talks were held with Mexican officials on
the possible cross-border impact of such a project.

Since no one knows for sure how the herbicide would affect human health (let alone the 1,000 species in the ecosystem around the cane) I’m hoping more testing happens before spray day. Better yet, we could figure out how to eradicate the cane without chemicals. Luckily, that doesn’t seem too hard:

Earlier this month, about 70 students from Texas A&M International University manually were able to clear about an acre of cane in fewer than three hours.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate