For months there have been efforts to ban the slaughtering of horses for human consumption here in the United States.

Now the Humane Society is focusing on horses being shipped to slaughter houses in Mexico.

Meanwhile, one Houston group is hoping to stop cruelty to horses south of the border.

Most Americans agree it is an ending that does not befit such a noble creature, but a video released just hours ago by the Humane Society of the U.S shows American horses being transported across the Texas border into Mexico.

It’s hard to tell which is worse, the toll of the journey or what awaits the horses once inside.

The video shows a man wielding a knife that resembles an ice pick.

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"There are horses being stabbed in the neck over and over again until their spinal cord is severed, they're paralyzed and they can no longer breathe," Nancy Perry of the Humane Society of the U.S. said.

The number of American horses going there for human consumption has dramatically risen by some accounts more than 300 percent.

The three remaining horse slaughtering facilities in the U.S., two of them in Texas, have been shut down.

“Horses have never been a part of the food chain of America.  You could make the argument let’s slaughter dogs and send the dog meat to China.  We don’t do that,” Rep. Ed Whitfield said.

Now some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are calling for legislation that would ban even transporting horses to slaughter.

Last year the house overwhelmingly passed legislation that would have done precisely that, but the measure stalled in the senate.

Polls show more than 70 percent of Americans are opposed to horse slaughter.