Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins offered an implausible explanation for the outbreak of a flesh-eating parasite among cattle in Texas.
In an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Rollins laid the blame for the screwworm outbreak on the Biden administration, despite Joe Biden being out of the White House for the last 17 months.
Specifically, Rollins said the infestation was a direct result of the former president’s “open borders policy, the cartels, etc., border security.”
“That’s when it began to make its way back up toward America, hitting Mexico in 2023, moving its way up through Mexico in 2024,” she continued.
“When we walked in the door last year, I was sworn in February 13th of 2025, they laid this all out for me and I said well where are the sterile flies? We’ve beat it before and we’ve got to beat it again, and obviously not much had been done to push back.”
Screwworm, despite its name, is actually the larvae of a fly, not a worm. It was eradicated in the United States in the 1960s using sterile male flies to stunt population growth among the parasitic insects.
While Rollins may want to lay the blame for the recent outbreak in Texas on the Biden administration, it may lie closer to home.
In March 2025, there were significant cuts made to the federal budget by Elon Musk’s DOGE team.
They included gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development, which had a program dedicated to preventing the spread of the parasite across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Other budget cuts made in the Department of Agriculture were to animal disease control and prevention, including screwworm.
That funding reportedly supported more than 180 outbreak investigations and responses in 22 countries, and helped build the capacity of more than 160 laboratories in testing, biosafety, quality assurance, and workforce development.
Funding that was targeted to monitoring and responding to the screwworm, preventing the spread of the disease to the U.S., was also cut.
Rollins is not the only one claiming the screwworm outbreak is the fault of lax immigration policies. Far right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer also made the claim on X Monday morning after two more cases of the parasite were announced.
“I warned in 2024 that Screw Worm would come to America if our illegal immigration was not controlled,” Loomer wrote.
“There have not been enough deportations. That’s how Screw Worm got here. Illegal aliens. Weaponized migration.”
All of the cases of screwworm in Texas have been in cows, not people. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for Zavala and Uvalde counties Monday.
The USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
