It is a paradise for Lepidoptera. For 20 years, the National Butterfly Center (NBC) in Texas has been a forty-hectare park where you can admire more than 200 varieties of butterflies with poetic names such as the great hairstreak, the fluttering lemon, the Blue Cassius or the Beautiful Lady. But lately, we come across much more harmful specimens.
The Reserve, which welcomes some 35,000 visitors each year, is located in a very sensitive area on the banks of the Rio Grande, bordering Mexico. The area has become a virtual war zone under the Trump administration and the situation has hardly improved since the arrival of Joe Biden. The number of migrants has exploded. From October 2020 to September 2021, more than 1.7 million people were apprehended at the border fleeing poverty in Central America, Venezuela, Haiti… At the same time, the region has become militarized. In addition to the Border Patrol agents who patrol, the very trumpist governor of Texas has deployed the National Guard armed to the teeth. There are watchtowers with sensors and cameras, motorboats crisscross the King Grande, helicopters make the noria…
Not to mention the wall. Donald Trump accelerated its construction and in 2017, it was announced to the Reserve that a large palisade would cross the park and block access to the Rio Grande. A disaster because the garden and its region are home to butterflies but also 300 species of birds, armadillos, snakes, lizards… which migrate to Mexico in winter and return in summer. A metal barrier more than 5 meters high will prevent some of this fauna from passing and risks trapping it on the Rio Grande side when it overflows. In addition, all vegetation near the wall will be razed.
NBC therefore launched a lawsuit to prevent construction on its property. The trial is still ongoing. The construction of the wall still continues under the Biden administration and is getting dangerously close. The surroundings of the park, which until then had been very wild, became as lively as 5th Avenue at 6 o’clock in the evening. Between two birdsongs, we hear the noise of trucks, diggers, there is dust everywhere, the road has been widened…
Even more disturbing, the NBC finds itself besieged by conspirators. After seizing Justice against the wall, the Lepidoptera Reserve in 2017 became the target of the far right. The threats escalated two years later when Brian Kolfage, a staunch Trumpist who was working to raise money to fund the construction of private portions of the wall, began to spread false rumors on Twitter and Facebook accusing NBC of supporting “illegal immigration and the sexual exploitation of women and children.” Death threats and insulting messages followed immediately. “We will make you pay for it,” said one of them.
“Cartels trafficking children”
The Center filed a libel suit against Kolfage who later along with his cronies including ex-Donald Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon were indicted for using the funds they raised for personal gain. . Steve Bannon has been pardoned by President Trump.
But the conspiracy theory continues to thrive on the internet. In January, Kimberly Lowe, a candidate for congressional representative in Virginia showed up at NBC and not to chase the butterfly. She asked to go near the river to observe “all the illegal crossings on skiffs.” Marianna Trevino Wright, the manager, asked him to leave. Which led to an algarade. In an audio recording, Kimberly Lowe is heard saying to the principal, “I’m sorry you don’t mind that children are being raped and killed.” When Wright tried to stop the contestant from filming her, she threw him to the ground, she said, and nearly ran over her son as she left. Kimberly Lowe denies everything and accuses Wright of assaulting her.
A few days later, a rally of anti-immigration Trumpists is held in nearby McAllen. NBC closed its doors as a precaution but a group of demonstrators went to the entrance anyway and one of them, Ben Bergquam, a member of a far-right site affiliated with Bannon, recorded a video explaining that the NBC has received “credible threats from cartels trafficking children passing through the Park.” He even holds up a child’s shoe, saying it belongs to one of the kids.
Wacky conspiracy theories are nothing new. Many Americans are still convinced that JFK is not dead, that the covid vaccine loves the body or that the white traces left by planes in the sky are not water vapor but a manipulation of scientists to poison us. More recently QAnon followers, including 23% of Republicans, believe Satan-worshipping pedophiles have taken over the country.
“This kind of activity, this kind of discussion, this is what happened before other horrible events where people were killed”, worries Jeffrey Glassberg, a biologist who developed the use of fingerprints and founded the Center on a former onion field. He references a 2019 Walmart supermarket massacre in Texas where a guy killed 23 Latinos because he believed in the neo-Nazi theory that minorities of color have a plan to replace white people. In 2016, a father of two drove from North Carolina to Washington with an assault rifle. He came to deliver the children locked in the basement of a pizzeria. According to a conspiracy theory, this neighborhood restaurant was the headquarters of a pedophile ring, led by Hillary Clinton. No one was injured, a real miracle.
Faced with the risk of violence, the NBC has closed until further notice. On his website he writes: “We still can’t believe we are at the center of this maelstrom of malevolence rising in the United States”