In what a U.S. combat veteran compared to some of the most horrific sights he saw during his deployment in Iraq, thousands of dogs and cats left by illegal immigrants at the Texas border are suffering and dying from extreme exposure or starvation after having been tortured or run over and left to die on roadways.
“There are literally hundreds of dead dogs and cats lying everywhere here,” John Mr. Rourke, a retired Army staff sergeant who did two tours in Iraq, told The Epoch Times. Some of them, he said, have been attacked with machetes, others have been shot, while others, he said, are dying while giving birth to litters of puppies and kittens, which he and others say are strewn all along the 400-mile U.S. border.
The cruelty he has seen at the border includes a dog that had suffered scalding oil being poured on its face and a German shepherd mix found dead on the side of the road with its mouth taped shut. Both were found in Colony Ridge, an area known as a crossing for illegal immigrants and where the highest population of abandoned pets exists. Animal rescuers say Eagle Pass is also overrun with stray dogs that were left at the border.
Rebecca Chavez, director of development at the Yaqui Animal Rescue in Sullivan City, Texas, told The Epoch Times that by the time her organization got to two puppies in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) area, someone had cut off the front paws of one of the puppies and scalped it. The puppy was still alive, but the decision was made to euthanize it.
“We need more resources, we need vets, we need money to buy food supplies. We need people to care,” she said. Her group recently came across a dog reported lying dead in the road only to discover the dog was still alive and had been lying there for days. It couldn’t get up because its spine was severed.
Joining Mr. Rourke and Ms. Chavez in sounding the alarm, animal rescue organizations told The Epoch Times they are exhausted and emotionally wracked by the situation and are begging for help.
After becoming aware of the animal crisis at the border, Mr. Rourke began using his moving van to transport some of the border dogs to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, a rescue organization in his home state of Florida. The nonprofit chronicles their rescue efforts in Texas on its website. He runs Blue Line Moving, which he bills as a conservative moving company that moves people from blue states to red states. He has done moving work for former President Donald Trump and his family. So far Mr. Rourke has moved 150 of the dogs—hardly a dent, he said, in what he estimates to be at least 10,000 dogs stranded along the border.
What he believes really should be done is for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to call up the National Guard to address the animal crisis at the border. He pointed out that the National Guard has a staff of veterinarians and vet techs who provide care for border patrol dogs and feels it could set up on-site spay and neuter clinics and provide much-needed emergency medical care for the animals.
Ms. Chavez agreed that the priority should be spaying and neutering these animals. She said both dogs and cats left at the border are rapidly reproducing in an already poor area wracked with animal abuse problems where there are few resources for veterinarian care.
While Mr. Rourke and Ms. Chavez are political opposites, they both equally blame Democrat and Republican lawmakers for not doing more.
Ms. Chavez, who also serves as the RGV chapter president of the Texas Humane Legislation Network, said so far the only response she got to her pleas for help was from a Republican state representative while Mr. Rourke, a conservative, censured wealthy Republican lawmakers such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for not helping.
“When Speaker McCarthy was down here at the border, he had to have seen this and yet he couldn’t write out a check?” asked Mr. Rourke.
Both are also hoping some of the big animal rescue organizations, like PETA, Best Friends in Utah, and the SPCA, will come forward and help.
Mr. Rourke, who has spent a considerable amount of time at the border, said illegal immigrants are dumping their pets after they arrive at the border and are told by the U.S. border agents they can’t take pets to shelters set up inside the country.
“It’s either they go back or dump their pet, so they dump their pet,” he said, adding that he has come across dogs small enough to fit in his hand to large breed dogs. He also said some of the migrants are bringing their dogs on their trip to the border for protection and then dumping them.
Ms. Chavez, whose group chronicles its work at the border on its Facebook page RGV Stray Animal Rescuers and Feeders, said that there is also a longstanding problem of Texas residents dumping their unwanted pets at the border. “It’s hardly just immigrants,” she said.
Shelby Bobosky, executive director of the Texas Humane Legislation Network, told The Epoch Times that another lingering problem adding to the new problem of abandoned pets by illegal immigrants is the low priority animal welfare has been given when it comes to government funding.
“Texans are not horrible people; we are killing ourselves trying to save these animals and give them life-saving results, but we are in a difficult time frame, because animal rights legislation and welfare for animals is low priority in our legislature.”
Mr. Rourke, who also runs a nonprofit called wefundtheblue.com, which cleans up trash left behind by illegal immigrants at the southern border while supporting underfunded local law enforcement, said that while he agrees Texans bear some of the blame, he pointed out that most of the local residents dumping the pets are illegal immigrants who previously crossed the border. He also said that instead of helping the abandoned animals, they are doing “horrible things” to them to keep them off their property. Several dogs, many which were left on the Mexican side of the border, have deep gashes and open head wounds believed to be inflicted by someone with a machete.
That being said, Mr. Rourke credited two women, who have been living illegally in the United States near the border for the past couple of years, as “true angels” to the abandoned animals.
at the southern border (Photo by Yaqui Rescue)
“They go out every single night, risking their lives in known rape areas, to feed the dogs and rescue as many as they can, using what little money they have to buy food for them,” he said. One of the women moved out of her makeshift home into a shed to make room for the abandoned dogs. Speaking to The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity, she said she has not applied for citizenship because she is afraid that if her application is denied, she will not be able to stay and help the dogs.
Mr. Rourke said the ultimate problem is that Biden’s open border policy has created an open floodgate for the “unwanted” of other countries—“criminals and the deranged”—who “think nothing” of harming animals.
“These are some really sick people coming into our country,” he said.
