United States National Butterfly Center to be Bulldozed For Trump’s Wall?

If putting migrant children in cages is not cruel enough, would President Trump give the green light to bulldoze the US National Butterfly Center?

By: Ringo Bones

The center’s director Marianna Wright compares the site to Disney’s Fantasia and more than 200 wildlife species, not just butterflies, make their homes at America’s most diverse sanctuary. But if President Trump had his way, all of it could be bulldozed to oblivion. On any given day at the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, visitors can see more than 60 varieties of butterflies. In the spring and fall, monarch butterflies and other species can blanket the center’s 100 acres of subtropical bushlands that extend from the visitor center to the banks of the Rio Grande river, where the wildlife center and US sovereignty ends.

The Trump administration could now bulldoze the National Butterfly Center to oblivion in order to build Trump’s so-called border wall because back in December 2018, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling allowing the Trump administration to waive 28 federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act and begin construction on 33 new miles of border wall in the heart of the valley – and right through the National Butterfly Center.

According to the National Butterfly Center’s director Marianna Wright “Environmental tourism contributes more than $450-million to Hidalgo and Starr counties.” referring to the adjacent counties in the valley. “Many of the properties people choose to visit to see birds, butterflies and threatened and endangered species are all going to be behind the border wall. For us, the economic impact is potentially catastrophic.”

More than 200 species of resident or migrating butterflies make homes at the butterfly center over the course of the year, including the vibrant Mexican bluewing, the tiny vicroy’s ministreak and the black swallowtail which carpets the wild dill at the property with its eggs each spring. The center opened in 2003 and is the flagship project of the North American Butterfly Association. Sadly, Trump has expansive powers to construct the border wall on both public and private land because since 2005, the Department of Homeland Security has had the power to waive numerous environmental laws in the name of national security.