He suspects much of the demand for Mexican bologna is driven by nostalgia. Alvarez recalled his family’s frying up bologna with scrambled eggs and putting it in tacos and buying white-bread bologna sandwiches from the Mexican convenience store Oxxo. “As long as there has been a border, there have been people bringing contraband both ways,” said Steven Alvarez, associate professor of English at St. John’s University and the writer behind the website Taco Literacy. CBP officials said some rolls are posted on Craigslist and others are sold at community markets or fairs. As of this writing, there weren’t any Facebook Marketplace sellers on the East Coast, but several of the vendors in western states expressed a willingness in their listings to ship their products elsewhere. On Facebook Marketplace, I was able to find rolls of Chimex across Colorado, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. The meat that is not detected travels far and (somewhat) wide. Months later, in January 2022, officials seized 243 pounds of bologna during two busts, first from a man who had hidden 55 pounds of it under the seats and in the trunk of an SUV, and then from a woman who had hidden nineteen sausages under her back seat, in some luggage, and inside a duvet cover.Īfter the meat is confiscated, it is incinerated, a process that CBP officials told me results in fragrant, hot dog–scented plumes of smoke that waft through the area. One day in September 2021, CBP agents found 320 pounds of bologna that had been concealed in a 2012 Honda Odyssey. The quantities of intercepted bologna are so large that it’s hard to believe that there are any pigs left in the world. In the U.S., the same roll can be sold for anywhere from $80 to $120-a huge markup for a basic lunch meat that Weird Al once wrote a spoof song about. In Mexico, a nine-pound roll of Chimex, the most popular brand of smuggled chubs, costs $10 to $15. But the fines are chump change when weighed against the potential profits. because they can carry maladies such as foot-and-mouth disease and African swine fever. The Department of Agriculture prohibits travelers from bringing most pork products into the U.S. Still, it persists at a steady clip-a busy, consistent form of commerce that raises the question Why bologna? The enterprising meat merchants smuggling these massive, plastic-wrapped sausages-known colloquially as “chubs”-face fines of $1,000 or more if caught. Stephen Colbert did a segment on it in 2012, and in the past decade it’s been covered by the Wall Street Journal and Time, among other outlets. The illicit Mexican bologna trade is not a new phenomenon in the United States. Customs and Border Protection officer drilled into a car’s bumper and the bit came out pink, covered in the slimy residue of lunch meat. Rolls are stuffed into the backs of SUVs, sewn into car seats, shoved into spare tires, or hidden in suitcases beneath heaps of shirts and socks. NOTICE OF ACCEPTANCE OF SEC.The tons of contraband lunch meat seized at the U.S.-Mexico border tell us something about the market value of nostalgia. TEAS REVOKE/APP/CHANGE ADDR OF ATTY/DOM REP RECEIVEDĪTTORNEY/ AND/OR APPOINTED TEAS RESPONSE TO OFFICE ACTION-POST REG RECEIVED REVIEW OF CORRESPONDENCE COMPLETE - INFORMATION MADE OF RECORDĬASE ASSIGNED TO POST REGISTRATION PARALEGAL TEAS WITHDRAWAL AS DOMESTIC REPRESENTATIVE RECEIVED OFFICIAL GAZETTE PUBLICATION CONFIRMATION E-MAILED NOTIFICATION OF NOTICE OF PUBLICATION E-MAILED NOTIFICATION OF EXAMINER'S AMENDMENT/PRIORITY ACTION E-MAILED NEW APPLICATION OFFICE SUPPLIED DATA ENTERED IN TRAMĮXAMINERS AMENDMENT AND/OR PRIORITY ACTION - COMPLETEDĬOMBINED EXAMINER'S AMENDMENT/PRIORITY ACTION AUTOMATIC ENTRYĮXAMINER'S AMENDMENT/PRIORITY ACTION E-MAILED Cold cuts and processed meats, namely, bologna, meat bologna, chicken bologna, spicy sausage in link form, pork sausage chicken, and corn dogs, namely, meat corn dogs, beef corn dogs, cheese corn dogs, turkey corn dogs
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