Butterflies that could stop Trump's wall

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National Butterfly Center

The obstacles at the border of President Donald Trump are not limited to the four walls of Congress. While the areas are being cleaned up to start building new sections, some landowners, including a butterfly sanctuary, have sued to stop construction.

Marianna Trevino Wright sits on a bench near a wooded section of the National Butterfly Center and begins to identify the animals.

Scissor flycatchers, green jays, olive sparrows and clay thrushes parade, pecking at oranges prepared as a snack and splashing in a bubbling fountain. From the tree branches above, the tailfish screams and whistles like alarms of avian cars.

Closer to the ground, a menagerie of butterflies floats among the neighboring flowering shrubs. Heliconians zebra and large orange sulphides; queens and elves lined with red.

Then there are the other images and sounds in the center.

The buzz of a helicopter from the US Department of Homeland Security. The Border Patrol officers buzz on motorcycles and ATVs, their faces masked by goggles and goggles, pistols by their side.

The roar of trucks dragging the tires behind them, smoothing the dusty roads so that the footprints of the spacers are easier to spot.

A government motorboat, with .30 caliber machine guns on deck, threatening the river.

The butterfly center, of which Wright is the director, is located on 100 acres, near the southern tip of Texas – a lowland swamp, scrub and scrub forest area, offering a variety of ecosystems offering extensive habitat for migratory species of all forms. and sizes.

It also borders the Rio Grande, which forms more than 1,200 miles (2,027 km) of the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico.

This places the small private environmental reserve at the center of a heated debate about immigration and national security – and about whether and where to build the often-promised border wall of Donald Trump.

"It's a war zone," Wright says. "It's what the government wants it to be, it's theater, so they have to have all the actors, all the costumes and all the accessories."

South Texas is a kind of funnel for animals that spend the winter in Mexico and penetrate into northern climates when the weather warms up.

It is also the closest geographical point to the United States of Central America, where an increasing number of families have fled poverty and political violence to seek refuge on American soil.

Battle for the border

Near the place where Wright sighted birds, a broad raised surmounted by a gravel road cut in half the center of the butterfly. This is where the US government wants to build a new wall section, using its broad powers to confiscate private property for public purposes.

Wright points out that the Border Patrol has already built a massive gate along the road – made of the same type of rust-colored steel as used elsewhere in its protective fences. For the moment, the structure, unrelated to other barriers, is more symbolic than useful. It can change one day.

Wright retires as another truck from the Border Patrol arrives. Its occupants, in green uniforms, smile and wave politely.

"They only do it because they know you are with the media," she says.

Her relationship with government staff who turned her small part of Texas into a near-militarized zone is generally not friendly, she says.

She explains how, one day in the summer of 2017, she discovered five private contractors with chain saws and big equipment, scrubbing brush and trees along a road running a mile and a half from the tax paid on the banks of the Rio Grande.

They left after a brief confrontation, but a few weeks later, a government representative arrived without notice at her office.

"He came up with posters representing the wall of the border and told me that they were building the wall of our property," Wright said.

The plans included an 18-foot vertical concrete slab along the front edge of the tax. A steel fence 18 feet tall elevates it from there, with a "flash night lighting" 22 feet tall, as she calls it. The current two-lane road extends over the width of six lanes.

"And when the entrepreneurs come back," she added, "they would wear a green uniform [Border Patrol] presence. Federal agents armed on private property therefore protect for-profit entrepreneurs. "

Wright worries about the impact that the planned boundary wall would have on the species present in his sanctuary.

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National Butterfly Center

Some birds and butterflies could pass through or over steel slates, but not all.

And terrestrial wildlife, such as armadillos and snakes and endangered lizards, will be trapped behind the wall when the Rio Grande is flooded. In addition, the natural habitat of all animals would be cleaned as part of the "area of ​​execution" of the wall.

After meeting with the government agent, Wright began a series of multi-year legal battles to prevent the US government from building its wall on the private property of the center.

This made him a hero for environmentalists and immigration activists, and the target of obscenity vitriol of some supporters of Trump and his followers.

The center's gift shop offers trinkets and insect books, as well as displays explaining the ongoing legal battle and "Ay Mariposa" butterfly t-shirts, subtitled "Battle for the Borderlands". More than $ 100,000 was raised for the center's legal fees.

"We are suing for violation of the NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] and the Endangered Species Act and the de facto seizure of our private property, as well as many other blatant acts committed by the Border Patrol, "Wright said.

The center has filed an intention to sue. Then the trial itself. So … nothing. No federal government response and no court hearing for more than a year.

Finally, last month, when contractors relocated heavy construction equipment to the property, the center filed a temporary restraint order.

The equipment was removed, but on February 14, a federal judge in Washington dismissed the lawsuit.

The exhaustive list of environmental and cultural preservation laws that the center's lawyers say the wall would violate would have been appropriately lifted by the Department of Homeland Security, the judge wrote. Other possible violations could only be challenged once the government broke the wall.

Wright and his legal team have appealed pending the government's action.

More voices from the border:

In February, Congress allocated $ 1.4 billion for the construction of new walls. However, legislators have indicated that none of these funds could be used for new fences through the butterfly center, wildlife sanctuaries, a Catholic church and several other private properties that have come to oppose construction.

These restrictions do not apply to the money released by the Trump administration in the president 's recent emergency declaration. However, it is feared that the suspension of the butterfly center is only temporary.

Tim Beeken, one of the center's lawyers, said that they would be ready if the builders would come back.

He says the Homeland Security Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, has not consulted properly with the owners before giving up federal laws and regulations that normally apply to such large construction projects.

"What we want them to do, is comply with these laws, act more deliberately and allow them to think about ways to protect the property rights of the center," Beeken said.

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The Washington Post via Getty Images

Such a strategy has already been used with some success – 63 times, according to the Washington Post count – to block other Trump administration policies that have been enforced without going through the proper procedural steps.

It's a technical argument, but if it works, the center will save time.

A wall, but not a solution

Wright said that for six years that she was working at the Butterfly Center, she only witnessed three small groups of undocumented migrants crossing the property.

US government figures, however, indicate that the lower Rio Grande Valley is becoming an increasingly popular entry point for Central American families and unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the United States. United.

From October to February, the border patrol apprehended 58,032 families on US soil, an increase of 209% over the same period the previous year.

Although Donald Trump is touting a wall as a means of ensuring border security since the start of his presidential campaign, soaring unauthorized crossings has given his call a new sense of urgency – an echo expressed by Republican politicians and their supporters.

"I absolutely think the border wall is needed," says Joacim Hernandez, a businessman from the nearby city of McAllen, Texas, and president of the Young Republicans of the region.

"In some areas, it is necessary to help control the flow of traffic and to assist border patrol agents and their work of apprehension of illegal immigrants."

He warns that if the wall stands in most of the Rio Grande Valley, but not in places like the butterfly center, these exposed areas will become the preferred illegal entry point – with the increase traffic causing exactly the type of significant environmental damage caused to the environment. The defenders of the center hoped to avoid.

This may end up being the case, but there is a small complication. A wall – even along the Rio Grande in South Texas – will not solve the current problem of immigration.

"Our wall is often located one kilometer or more from the river, the real frontier," said Jim Darling, Mayor of McAllen. Build it closer, and it would be in the flood plain of the river.

As soon as migrants cross the river, he continues, they are eligible for their claims for political asylum to be heard by a US judge.

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Getty Images

In other parts of the United States, like California, the government is building walls on the border, preventing potential immigrants from setting foot on US soil.

In the Rio Grande, however, the passages will not stop until the American law on asylum is changed – and those fleeing their homes in Central America know that the law has changed and that it does not change. would not be enough to go on dry land.

The current system has encouraged more potential migrants to move away from places like Tijuana on the California border to Texas, even as the neighboring Mexican state of Tamaulipas struggles to cope with violence and the influence of drug cartels.

"The current policy is this: continue to fight for the wall and ignore this huge problem that we create with asylum and the failure of immigration policy," Darling said.

Missing crisis

The World Birding Center in Hidalgo, Texas, offers a glimpse of what might be the center of the butterflies, located a dozen kilometers from the river.

Tree bottoms always attract wild animal watchers, with binoculars around the neck and animal identification cards in hand. A canal links the Rio Grande to an old pumping station, which once supplied water to agricultural fields in the north.

The pumping station was a symbol of the region's link with the waters of the Rio Grande and its dependence on them.

At present, the river is only accessible by a narrow road at the bottom of the canal. The rest of the property is lined with the kind of imposing border wall that Mr. Trump promises to extend.

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Alamy

The river is a solid embankment of vertical concrete. A rust red protective barrier dominates areas where concrete is not as high. A chain link fence and a curly accordion wire with razor sharp thorns fill up where there is no steel.

A massive electronic gate near the pumping station looks like something coming out of the Jurassic Park that is suitable for holding an angry Tyrannosaurus.

Cameras dot the fence and at the other end, where the road curves down to the river, a border police surveillance tower with dark, tinted windows monitors the area.

The wall is a kind of tourist attraction attracting some who may have come for a walk to observe the birds or visit the museum's pumping station.

Teresa Ruess, an Iowan who spends the winters in South Texas with her husband, pauses in front of the awesome door and declares that she approves the wall.

"I do not like to say it, but I think we need it," she said, adding that immigrants crossing the river could be carriers of disease in the United States.

"But I feel for the children," she continues.

Further down the gravel road, a young couple – Ithiel Cruz and Keren Tovar, nearby towns of Texas – also takes a curious look at concrete, steel and barbed wire.

They say they do not know if it's good or bad, but they do not like all the negative attention that the debate on border security gives to their area.

"We were just in Houston recently, and they learned that we were coming from the valley, they are wondering what's going on there, you see a lot of crime or a lot of people coming in?" Said Cruz.

"It's as if we honestly do not hear much about it, it's really good where we are, we do not know why you're all scared."

Statistics confirm it. For example, near McAllen, the crime rate is the lowest in 34 years – with declines in the last nine years.

Victor Rodriguez, the city's chief of police, attributes this success to all the resources the federal government has allocated to border towns – of which the already-built border-wall is only a part. The most precious resource they have received, he says, is the human race. The number of border police officers in the Rio Grande Valley region rose from 392 in 1994 to over 3,100 today.

"People can make arrests, people can deter, people can stop," says Rodriguez. "Fences and walls do not do that."

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National Butterfly Center

What is clear to him, however, is that McAllen and the surrounding cities are not in crisis.

Although they have seen an increase in the number of undocumented migrants, putting pressure on the city's resources, asylum seekers do not stay in the area. They are heading north and east, where the jobs, their friends and their families live.

"They go to Chicago, they go to New York or big cities," he says. "They will tell you if it's a crisis or not."

Memories of a river

It's a foggy morning in mid-March and a few bends back from the butterfly center Sandra Leal and his son Edgar, sitting by the river, sit by the river and fish.

Anzalduas Park is located at the point where the existing curb is transformed into a planned wall. It's a bit of green grass, trees, picnic tables, barbecues and boat docks.

The previous night, more than 300 migrants crossed the river, just south of the park, where they were quickly stopped by the Border Patrol. Now, however, it's calm.

There is also a park on the Mexican side, a hundred meters away. People also fish there and we hear some light ranchero music chords when the wind blows towards the east.

Leal says she enjoys spending time with her son by the river. Earlier in the day, she showed Edgar a map of the Rio Grande and explained how it extends from far away Colorado. He wondered if a part of the water in which they fished was traveling the whole distance.

She said she liked to think – that the river, the fourth longest in the United States, forms a link that lies deep in the heart of the country.

"Even if we do not catch anything at all today, it's more about being connected to our natural beauty here," she says. Playing indoors is nice, she says, but outdoor memories – going fishing, visiting the butterfly center, going to something natural – are the ones that last.

She fears that a wall separates her community from the river and gives her son a different memory of his childhood.

"Take children fishing, see nature, be able to show Mexico right there … having a wall simply takes away our natural beauty," she says. "I do not want a memory to be based on that great wall that separates us."

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National Butterfly Center

This is what worries filmmaker Ben Masters, who has been seen all along the US-Mexico border. With a group of friends, he traveled the Rio Grande from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico by canoe, horseback and mountain bike, recording his journey for the recently released documentary The River and the Wall.

"What I've seen in areas where there is a wall, people do not feel comfortable," says Masters. "There is a no man's land between the river and the wall where they are constantly harassed by the Border Patrol.You know this is not an environment in which people want to vacation. "

Masters also notes the irony that the United States led a war against Mexico in the 1840s largely to ensure access to the Rio Grande, the only major water plan of the region.

Now, the country is essentially giving up these lands.

Under the law, the US government can not use the wall to block Americans from their private property. Whether it be from breeders, owners, practitioners or birdwatchers, the Border Patrol is obliged to build gates along the border wall to allow for United States residents to come and go as they please.

Wright, from the Butterfly Center, promises to give his door a code of access to each of the 30,000 annual visitors and members of the reserve.

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National Butterfly Center

The reality, however, is that the wall – with its imposing steel, concrete and barbed wire frame, placed under the watchful eye of uniformed government agents – could constitute a psychological barrier as much than physical.

That's what Wright tries to argue in his lawsuit, namely that the wall creates more problems than it solves.

The government, she says, must take full account of the people and animals that live along the Rio Grande.

"We enjoy the river," says Wright. "We know how much it is an incredible resource for our natural treasures, but also for our trade, our economy, our amistad – the kinship – that we have on the other side."

The question is whether a judge will eventually accept.

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