Butterfly sanctuary won't go down without a fight, flies into federal court

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday February 12, 2019 · 9:14 AM PST

2019/02/12 · 09:14

The entrance to the National Butterfly Center on January 15, 2019, in Mission, Texas. - The protected habitat of butterflies along the Rio Grande is expected to be plowed over to clear the way for President Trump's border wall after the US Supreme Court rebuffed a challenge by environmental groups. (Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO / AFP) (Photo credit should read SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP/Getty Images)

The Texas Observer is reporting that lawyers for the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, have asked a federal judge to press pause on a section of Trump’s border wall that would cut through the sanctuary’s privately owned land. Since December, the center has been threatened by Trump’s planned wall. After conservationists were dismissed by the Supreme Court in their attempts to slow the process down, bulldozers began arriving on the privately owned land at the beginning of February. Local indigenous tribes—who have long opposed Trump’s dumb wall— have organized and joined protestors at the sanctuary.

Native American protesters marched to the National Butterfly Center in South Texas this morning to protest border wall construction. The same activists have a protest camp set up at a nearby historic cemetery. Video: pic.twitter.com/wNFnYys2AF
Ã¢ÂÂ Gus Bova (@bova_gus) February 4, 2019

According to the Observer, Monday night’s motion is part of an already existing lawsuit filed by the National Butterfly Center, a possible last-ditch effort at stalling the government’s plans to break ground as early as next week. The motion specifically points out that federal agents have been walking around and treating the sanctuary’s land as if it is their own already. Sanctuary workers say that, even as of Saturday, they were finding that federal agents had cut through National Butterfly Center locks on gates and replaced them with government-issued ones.

In the larger lawsuit against the federal government, the center’s legal team has presented numerous reasons why this wall—besides being idiotic—would be detrimental. Besides breaking up the actual butterfly sanctuary itself and likely leading to cratering of tourism—one of the ways the center stays financially viable—the government’s plans to outfit the area with cameras and enormous LED lights would also be detrimental to the wildlife that uses the area.

Butterfly sanctuary won't go down without a fight, flies into federal court

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