Texas butterfly center asks court to stop wall
Feds have not acquired the land, but contractors have been there already
DALLAS — The National Butterfly Center has filed for a restraining order to keep federal agents and contractors who plan to build a border wall through the popular nature preserve off its property.
The butterfly center in the small Texas town of Mission in the Rio Grande Valley has tried for more than a year to stop the border fencing, which Congress approved last March. But the current debate over the Trump admin- istration’s demands for billions more dollars in border wall funding has focused national attention on the preserve’s plight.
Executive director Marianna Trevino-Wright said the center’s attorneys filed for a restraining order in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., because construction equipment and contractors have driven across the center’s property, even though the federal government has yet to acquire the land.
The motion, which was first reported by the Texas Observer, accuses the federal Department of Homeland Security in the past week of driving trucks and heavy machinery across the center “as if they own it,” replacing the lock on one of the gates and blocking access to “more than two-thirds” of the property. The filing seeks to prevent any federal employees or federal contracts from “taking any action” on the center’s property “for construction of a border wall, enforcement zone, road or any related installations, or otherwise interfering with the (butterfly center’s) use and enjoyment of its property” pending the outcome of lawsuits filed by the butterfly center and other groups allied against the wall’s construction.
A federal judge Tuesday had not yet scheduled a hearing on the center’s request.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said publicly it intends to start building the wall through the butterfly center this month. The agency’s spokesman Carlos Diaz declined to comment, citing pending litigation.