Hundreds Protest Trump’s Plan for Border Wall in Texas

August 14, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Saturday, August 12, 2017. Hundreds of protesters, wearing white and chanting in English and Spanish, marched to protest plans for a new border wall. They crossed the levee on the Rio Grande, the winding river that separates the United States and Mexico in Texas. Here is where Trump has proposed putting up 60 miles of wall as part of a $1.6 billion proposal. About 40 groups took part in the protest, from environmentalists to landowners’ rights groups to immigrant rights activists. The protesters said they hoped to draw national attention to their opposition.

The wall would go through a federally protected wildlife refuge and split apart several border towns. The Statesman reported, “Under the current proposal, the wall would seal La Lomita on the southern side of the levee. It would also cut through the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, a verdant sanctuary for 400 species of birds and nearly half of the butterfly species found in North America. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security can waive environmental reviews to build more quickly, and has already issued a waiver for proposed construction in San Diego.”

There are reports that government contractors are already working on the wall―taking soil samples along the Rio Grande levees and beginning to examine property ownership records.

Scott Nicol, co-chair of the Sierra Club’s Borderlands campaign and an organizer of Saturday’s rally, told the Austin Statesman, “Because people have seen the walls go up and see what they do, it’s not sort of an abstract, imagined concept.” “There’s a lot more opposition to it now than there was 10 years ago.”

Marie Montalvo, who lives in San Benito, said, “I want my nieces and nephews, and the children of the Rio Grande Valley, to know that I was completely against this.”

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