Butterfly Association Tries to Mothball Trump’s Border Wall

The North American Butterfly Association filed for a temporary restraining order to stop the Trump Administration from building sections of border barriers in South Texas.

The group seeks a temporary order and a preliminary injunction against the Department of Homeland Security, CBSDFW reported. Despite the construction project being located in the Southern District of Texas, the group filed its lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

“NABA is seeking this relief as heavy equipment sent to South Texas to build six new miles of border wall now advances toward the National Butterfly Center (NBC), a flagship project of NABA,” association officials stated.

Marianna Wright, executive director for the Butterfly Center wrote, “For more than a year, people have been talking about butterflies versus border security, but this case is about so much more than that — it is about Constitutional protections, the right to due process, the illegal waiver of laws duly enacted by Congress, and the lawlessness of the federal government’s actions.”

The NBC complained the construction project began “before any Congressional appropriation was made to fund construction in the area.”

However, CBS News reported that the contract awarded to carry out the construction was funded by Congress in 2018.

A DHS planning document reported on by Breitbart News in April 2018, notes that sections of the Rio Grande Valley Sector are considered to “high priority” areas for the first sections of the border wall’s construction. The sector is ground zero for illegal border crossings by migrant families and unaccompanied minors. More than half of all apprehensions of migrants illegally crossing the border happen in this sector.

Wright told the Dallas CBS affiliate that they found government contractors “cutting down our trees, mowing down brush that provides critical habitat for butterflies and other wildlife.” She also said the contractors are widening a road on the group’s property.

Mission, Texas, is located near the butterfly center. Mayor Beto Salinas told the Washington Times last year that he looks forward to the wall’s construction.

“Everyone who lives along the river is afraid,” Mayor Salinas said. “The best thing that could happen to us is that we go ahead and build the fence and see if we can stop some of the illegals from coming across. It’s not just one or two of them, it’s 20 or 30 of them at once, every night.”

Not far away, Rio Grande City Mayor Joel Villarreal agreed. He told the D.C. newspaper he favors physical barriers and technology to secure the border.

Mayor Villarreal’s city is no stranger to the many problems created by an unsecured border. In September 2016, Breitbart Texas reported on the arrest of a Rio Grande City police officer who allegedly assisted drug smugglers in their efforts to rip-off Gulf Cartel smuggling shipments through the area. In April 2015, another Rio Grande City police officer ended up behind bars after Homeland Security Investigation special agents arrested him in a similar scheme. Breitbart Texas reported extensively on other border-related crimes occurring in and around this tiny town.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.