The border fence.
There is a lot of border fence here along the Rio Grande, we’ve sent pictures, but mostly they’ve left the wildlife refuges alone. They fence up to a refuge, then leave a wildlife and people gap in the fence, and leave that last little bit of native land almost undisturbed.
But the federal government has authorized more fence. It’s not the wall; it is fencing that was approved long ago and they’re just now getting to it. The problem is, the new sections of fence are going right through all the wildlife refuges. We’ve seen activity in Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, the National Butterfly Center, and Bentsen Rio-Grande State Park; all of them within 20 miles of our house. We see the construction activity and ask the wildlife centers about it when we call or visit, but no-one can answer our question: “Will we still be allowed access to these refuges after the fence is built?” None of the refuges can answer the question. The fence is not a state or local project. Local people have no part in it. Any effort to get information out of the federal government Department of Homeland Security is met with silence. They just won’t answer, so we don’t know, and even the entities that are directly affected don’t know and can’t find out.
Help. We don’t want to lose our refuges. We don’t know if we will or not, but the prospect is saddening. If the feds are not going to fence us out, they could just tell us now. We’d still be upset about more and more fencing in our neighborhood, but we could have the consolation of knowing we could still visit our public places in the future.
