Posted on 12/12/2018 10:07:41 AM PST by dennisw
President Trump is pushing for more money to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The debate could come to a head as Congress nears a deadline to fund parts of the government. Some sections of the border already have a wall. And in many areas, building more wall means cutting through private property. In South Texas, NPR's Cristina Cala and Sam Gringlas visited a place where that conflict is already playing out.
SAM GRINGLAS, BYLINE: We're just looking at dozens and dozens of these red and black butterflies.
CHRISTINA CALA, BYLINE: Like a cloud of butterflies - just one right after the other.
GRINGLAS: The National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, hugs the banks of the Rio Grande River. It has a visitor center, hiking trails, gardens - all on 100 acres of land at the end of a long dirt road.
MARIANNA TREVINO-WRIGHT: These are queens. And this one right here is a soldier...
CALA: That's Marianna Trevino-Wright, executive director of the sanctuary. She says this part of the Rio Grande Valley has more butterfly species than anywhere in North America.
TREVINO-WRIGHT: Every day I come to work, it's like going on a safari.
GRINGLAS: Right before the midterm elections, the Trump administration announced it had awarded contracts to build six miles of border wall in Hidalgo County, Texas. It will be one of the first new stretches of wall built under President Trump. Trevino-Wright says the wall will be constructed up to a mile back from the river, basically cutting the butterfly sanctuary in half.
TREVINO-WRIGHT: So this is it.
GRINGLAS: So all this land in between here, the river and where we started out by the levee, that's going to maybe be closed off to you.
TREVINO-WRIGHT: It's going to be a no man's land. It's going to be border patrols' enforcement zone. They will clear everything. One agent told me, why would we leave even one bush for someone to hide under?
GRINGLAS: Customs and Border Protection denies that it plans to completely clear-cut the land. It also says that property owners who need access to the land between the river and the wall can have it.
CALA: The Butterfly Center doesn't have a lot of options to stop the law. The federal government can claim private lands for public use through a legal process called eminent domain. The government has used eminent domain many times before to build other stretches of the border while under previous administrations. Trevino-Wright gets that. But she was shocked when last year she found workmen wielding chainsaws, cutting down trees and mowing down brush to survey the land.
That is a deal breaker, just let the illegals in.
For one thing, the wall is not solid.
Another thing, yes, definitely, of course, we should destroy the nation to preserve a butterfly.
snort!
Can’t the butterflies choose where to hang?
It’s not like they can’t get to the other side. How stupid can one be??
Butterflies——trespassers——buttreflies-—————trespassers. So many choices.
We can’t keep our country because butterflies. F*** NPR. Defund NPR
Like the butterflies can move over a bit?
Surveyors cutting down stuff?? Me thinks not.
I stepped on a butterfly once.
(The world kept turning)
Can’t they just adapt for heaven’s sake?! Don’t these butterflies obey the law of evolution? Sheesh!
Butterflies can fly and they are smarter than these dumshits.
Well thats t. If people have to die, become sex slaves, or drug addicts so be it. We MUST save the butterflies
You mean those butterflies would have to FLY OVER THE FENCE?????
THE HORRORS!!!!
I am glad to see this article- it shows the absolute stupidity of liberals.
Every day I come to work, its like going on a safari.
Oh no! That butterfly grabbed Simone! The horror....the horror.....
For a couple million dollars in federal grant money I’ll teach them to fly. Problem solved.
Yep, them pretty butterflies bump right into “Trump’s Wall” and fall down dead.
Give them some alternative land, maybe replant around the wall, or simply bring in a few butterfly-eating birds to deal with the infestation.
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