Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller (R) says ICE raids this week on three meatpacking plants in Kansas will drive beef prices up for consumers while cutting into what ranchers get paid for their cattle.
Speaking Friday on NewsNation Now, Miller said ICE agents raided plants in Garden City, Liberal, and Dodge City, Kansas, shutting them down and creating what he called “a ripple effect” through the entire beef supply chain.
“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,” Miller said.
Miller said imported beef has done nothing to bring down hamburger prices, and argued that large meatpackers are the only ones profiting under current conditions. “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,” he said.
Miller also drew a comparison to earlier in the Trump administration, when he says ICE enforcement action targeted dairy farm workers rather than the criminal population the administration said it would pursue.
“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,” Miller said.
Miller said enforcement had since been fairly quiet on the agriculture front until this week’s raids on the three Kansas packing plants. He said the resulting supply disruption works against the administration’s stated goal of lowering consumer costs.
“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,” Miller said. “This is not a good way to lower beef prices by shutting down our packing plants.”
