Yet one more mass shooting at a cockfight — the third in Mexico in recent months — underscores violence associated with trafficking of fighting animals, as Congress dithers on the FIGHT Act
Washington, D.C. — A handful of lawmakers in Congress blocked final action on the FIGHT Act, and just days after that unfortunate obstructionism, there was one more mass shooting at a cockfight in Mexico.
The Colima Prosecutor’s Office reported through a statement that one of the three men killed on Sunday afternoon at a cockfight in Manzanillo was a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. In late January 2024, there were 14 wounded and six murdered, including a 16-year-old from eastern Washington at a cockfighting derby in the Mexican state of Geurrero. Months before, also in Mexico, 20 people were massacred at a cockfighting derby, including a Chicago woman.
Earlier this year, U.S. Senators Cory Booker, D.-N.J., and John Kennedy, R-La. introduced the Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-Risk Trafficking (FIGHT) Act, S. 1529, but an attempt by Kennedy and Booker to pass it this month was blocked by a handful of Senators. Reps. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Andrea Salinas, D-Oregon, introduced the companion bill H.R. 2742, which is the most bipartisan animal welfare measure in Congress. That bill has been endorsed by more than 760 agencies and organizations including the National Sheriffs’ Association, the National District Attorneys’ Association, and hundreds of state and local sheriffs’ associations and offices.
“American cockfighters are doing business with Mexican cartels that are staging cockfights throughout Mexico, and it’s leading to murder and chaos for the people of Mexico,” stated Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy. “Mexican cockfighters, mainly the cartels, are the number one customer for U.S.-based cockfighters shipping hundreds of thousands of birds to Mexico. And to be sure, there is violence spilling over from these cartels in the United States, along with other random violence associated with these spectacles of cruelty.”
There is spillover of the violence and an accentuation of the border crisis, particularly in border states such as Texas. Fighting animals are flowing north into the United States from Mexico, too. Court dockets in Texas counties show a cockfighting crime wave:
- Bexar County law enforcement arrested 47 people and seized 200 birds, along with illegal weapons.
- A raid in Goliad County resulted in 60 arrests and several illegal weapons seized.
- There were more than 160 roosters seized in a Potter County bust where, according to the sheriff, “many” participants were “unlawfully in the United States.”
- At a cockfight busted by the San Jacinto sheriff, suspects were “expected to face multiple felony charges, ranging from animal cruelty, cockfighting, illegal gambling, unlawful weapon possession, organized crime, and federal firearm possession by illegal immigrants.”
- In Lynn County, the sheriff brought felony charges “because of organized criminal activity.” There have been a series of interdictions at the border, including a federal enforcement action in which officers “made an unusual discovery, roosters deeply hidden within passenger vehicles.”
- In Van Zandt County, a bust resulted in the seizure of more than 100 birds from deplorable conditions.
- In Hidalgo County, in early June, a young man shot his uncle in a dispute over birds thought to be raised for cockfighting.
There have been a series of interdictions at the border, including a law enforcement action where officers “made an unusual discovery, roosters deeply hidden within passenger vehicles,” according to press releases. Border Patrol and Customs seized this shipment of fighting implements from Mexico City and separately found cockfighting blades and other paraphernalia at the border in California.
“When federal lawmakers stand in the way of the FIGHT Act, they stand in the way of law enforcement and its efforts to dismantle organized criminals consorting with the deadliest cartels in the world,” added Pacelle. “Law enforcement officers have their lives on the line and a handful of lawmakers in Congress are trying to deny them more tools to curb this form of organized crime.”
This is no benign trade. Cockfighting is barbaric and cruel. Fighting birds are fitted with razor-sharp blades on their legs to hack and cut each other for the sick enjoyment of spectators who get a thrill from the bloodletting.
Virulent Newcastle disease has entered the United States by illegal smuggling of infected cockfighting roosters from Mexico at least ten times, causing multiple epidemics, resulting in mass depopulation of millions of commercial poultry, and producing outlays of hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars for indemnity payments to farmers and disease containment efforts. The U.S. is experiencing an outbreak of H5N1 that threatens the commercial poultry industry and the supply of eggs and poultry, and cockfighting has long been identified as a super-spreader of this virus.
“Cockfighting is barbarism, and it’s tied to other crimes degrading the safety of our communities and threatening food and agriculture in the United States,” added Pacelle. “It is especially important to strengthen federal animal fighting laws to stop the endless trafficking of fighting animals across the southern border.”