A national wildlife refuge established to protect biodiversity in Texas has now been conscripted into the Trump administration’s expanding war against illegal immigration.
Declaring that “more can and must be done” to armor a U.S.-Mexico border, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday waived more than two dozen environmental laws to ease construction of “barriers and roads” on the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct additional physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States,” Noem stated.
Noem exempted the border control-related work on portions of the 40,000-acre wildlife refuge from landmark laws such as the Endangered Species Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act, as well as lesser-known statutes, including the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act and the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act.
