Paxton Cheered for the Cuts Killing Texas Cattle

Paxton's DOGE Loyalty Now Has a Cost, and Texas Cattle Are Paying It

Ken Paxton has spent the last year positioning himself as the Trump administration's most reliable Texas ally. That positioning now sits alongside an active screwworm outbreak spreading through South and Central Texas ranch country.

USDA has confirmed six cases of New World screwworm in Texas livestock since June 3, with confirmed infections in Zavala, La Salle, Gillespie, and Edwards counties. The Texas Animal Health Commission has placed quarantine zones across portions of ten counties, including Kerr, Kimble, Sutton, Uvalde, Val Verde, and Webb. Warm-blooded animals inside those zones cannot be moved without prior authorization and a TAHC-issued movement certificate. The USDA began releasing sterile male screwworm flies on June 4, deploying two million twice weekly by air and four million per week through ground-release chambers stationed around the detection zones.

The New World screwworm was eradicated from US soil in 1966. Its larvae burrow into the living tissue of cattle, goats, deer, and other warm-blooded animals through open wounds. Left untreated, an infestation turns fatal within seven to ten days.

Early last year, DOGE dismantled USAID and eliminated roughly 5,300 grants and programs in the process. One of those programs monitored and contained the spread of New World screwworm in Central America, according to a March 2025 Agri-Pulse report submitted to Congress. The cuts also terminated approximately $382 million in funding for more than 100 programs administered by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, covering animal disease control, biosafety, and famine prevention. DOGE also cut approximately 1,300 employees from USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. The cuts to screwworm monitoring occurred shortly before the Trump administration lifted Biden-era restrictions on Mexican cattle imports in February 2025. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins reinstated that import ban in May 2026 after screwworm cases accelerated northward through Mexico. Whether the monitoring cuts directly caused the current Texas outbreak remains unconfirmed, though agriculture officials raised alarms at the time.

Rollins has attributed the outbreak to the Biden administration's border policies and the northward movement of livestock from Central America. The factual record complicates that argument. Biden placed the original ban on bison, horse, and cattle imports from Mexico in November 2024 after screwworm was detected at a checkpoint in Chiapas. Trump lifted it. Rollins reimposed it after cases had already crossed into Texas.

In February 2025, Paxton called Musk and the DOGE team "incredible" and said he was "proud to stand with President Trump and Elon Musk" as they cut federal spending. He repeated that support in a later appearance on The Truth with Lisa Boothe. Paxton also traveled to Trump's Turnberry golf resort in Scotland in July 2025 to seek an endorsement he ultimately received on May 19, 2026. Trump called him "a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas." Paxton has not publicly commented on the screwworm monitoring cuts or their connection to the current outbreak.

The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association estimates a screwworm outbreak could cost the state $1.8 billion annually, with cattle producers alone facing up to $745 million per year in losses. Ground beef already hit a record $6.89 per pound in May 2026, the highest price tracked since 1984, against the backdrop of the smallest US beef herd in 75 years. Texas state lawmakers received formal warnings in May 2026 that screwworm was advancing toward the state and that the economic consequences could reach into the billions. The first confirmed Texas case followed less than a month later.

Paxton won the May 26 Republican runoff over John Cornyn and now faces Democrat James Talarico in the November general election. A June poll shows the two tied at 45 percent. The ranchers checking their livestock every morning in Zavala and La Salle counties are his constituents, and they are managing a federal agricultural crisis shaped in part by the administration whose endorsement he spent over a year pursuing.

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

Copyright © 2026 Maria Santos Salinas for FRONTeras.

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