Moving around the workforce cuts “was absolute chaos,” says Armando Rosario-Zlebrón, vice president of the National Association of Agricultural Workers, who represents employees in the plant protection program and quarantine.
“These ports were already tense in a way of processing the load, and now some of them have been completely decimated,” says Rosario-Blebrón. “We can return to problems at the level of Pandemic for some goods if we don’t fix it.”
The Department of Agriculture did not answer the request for comment. Republican Senator Joni Ernst, who was a raucous supporter of Doge’s efforts, previously publicly supported the training program for USDA dogs and Corponsored regulations This would give him constant financing. Her office refused to comment on cuts.
Two federal judges and an independent agency that assesses the decisions of government personnel ordered These dismissed USDA employees were restored. At the beginning of this week, USDA stated that it stopped for 45 days and “develop a stage plan to return to Duty.” But the affected staff remains in the shadowy about their future, and the Trump administration signaled that he would fight court decisions to restore employees, and the press secretary of the White House Karoline Leavitt vocation One of the “absurd and unconstitutional” judgments.
Because these legal and regulatory battles are still operating, Hudicka claims that she expects a number of flowing effects, such as local market wars over resources, which larger cities and larger food networks will be better equipped than in communities and communities and rural communities and communities. Hudicka claims that permission to send unvaccinated containers can also affect other sectors, because delays prevent them from reusing other types of goods. “These containers should carry things every day, and now they are parked somewhere,” he says.
Kit Johnson, director of trade compliance in the American customs broker John S. James, also predicts a boost in prices and waste. But the most alarm increases for him a greater probability that invasive species slip through the cracks in the inspection. He says that the price of the lack of a threatening pest “destruction of the entire agricultural goods”, an event that can “not only have the effects of economic but national security.”
Tenting the Department of Agriculture can even have consequences for American customs and protect borders that deploy dogs trained by Copeland and other employees at the National Detection Training Center. CBP also works closely with USDA in other ways, especially at the entrance points. Both agencies run an agricultural quarantine inspection program, but is financed by USDA. Many animal and plant health control programs are not about taxpayers’ dollars, but instead Collect fees from importers and other industry players. In this way, it subsidizes some activities related to CBP agriculture. CBP did not answer the request for comment.
When the dismissed USDA employees are waiting to hear whether their restoration takes place, the ports begin to feel their absence. “Not so many inspections have been carried out and not only exposes us to risk,” says Lahar. “This is exposed by our farmers and our food chains.”
Update 17/17/25 12:42 PM EST: Reference in this story to “pig flu” has been updated to “pig fever” to more accurately reflect the type of diseases usually detected by dogs binding diseases.