On January 21, 2022, Kimberly Lowe arrived at the National Butterfly Center in Hidalgo County, Texas. A Republican candidate in Virginia’s 9th Congressional District Republican Party, Lowe had come to investigate illegal immigration, according to the center’s executive director, Marianna Trevino-Wright. The incident is one of numerous in recent months that led the National Butterfly Center to close indefinitely.
The National Butterfly Center is no stranger to controversy. It has been the target in recent years of right-wing conspiracy theorists, claiming that human smuggling and child sex-trafficking have taken place on the center’s property, just outside the Rio Grande. The claims rose to prominence after Trevino-Wright and the center filed a restraining order opposing the Trump administration’s plan to build part of the border wall through the middle of the center’s property.
Following the restraining order, Trumpist group “We Build the Wall” leader Brian Kolfage sent out several tweets saying that the center was run by “left wing thugs with a sham butterfly agenda,” and claiming without evidence that the center was involved in a “rampant sex trade.”
“The only butterflies we saw were swarming a decomposing body surrounded by tons of rotting trash left behind by illegals,” Kolfage tweeted in 2019.
Controversy around these claims reignited in January when Lowe and her friend, referenced by Lowe only as “Michelle,” arrived at the center. In an affidavit, Trevino-Wright claims that the two women entered the property and demanded Trevino-Wright’s son open a gate so they could go see “illegals crossing on rafts.”
“Immediately, we knew what that was about,” Wright told The Daily Beast. “It was an echo and reiteration of the lies Steve Bannon’s ‘We Build The Wall’ campaign published and promoted against us for years.”
In Trevino-Wright’s affidavit, she says she approached Lowe and her friend and told them that they were trespassing on private property. What followed was a three-minute recorded conversation between the three women that has been widely circulated online.
“You are here to promote your agenda and your agenda is not welcome here,” Trevino-Wright can be heard saying on the recording.
“So you’re not for keeping the illegals out?” Michelle counters.
“So you’re not for helping all these poor people in the humanitarian crisis?” Lowe says. “So, you’re okay with children being sex trafficked and raped and murdered.”
“That is not at all what this is about. We have Girl Scouts spend the night here. That’s how safe it is.” Trevino-Wright says.
When Trevino-Wright asks the pair to leave, Michelle claims she is Secret Service, saying, “Nothing is off-limit for me.”
As Trevino-Wright laughs at this claim, Lowe can be heard saying, “So we’re here with a woman who’s not a very nice person who’s okay that children—”
Lowe is cut off as Trevino-Wright grabs or swats away her phone. “You did not take my f—ing phone,” Lowe yells.
In her affidavit, Trevino-Wright says her panic caused her to move to take away Lowe’s phone.
“Lowe had her phone up and appeared to be filming me. Given Bannon, Kolfage, the Neo-Nazi, Hardy Lloyd, and their various outlets have published and broadcast images of me, along with threats to the center, me and my children, I panicked. I moved to stop her from doing this, by knocking or taking away her phone and retreating inside the building to wait for the police,” she says.
According to Trevino-Wright’s affidavit, someone shoves her to the ground. One of the women is then heard on the audio recording shouting, “Get the f— down, bitch.” Trevino-Wright alleges that one of the women grabbed her phone and refused to return it.
In a now-deleted Facebook Live video from Lowe, the two women return to their car, with Michelle audibly claiming that she has Trevino-Wright’s phone.
Trevino-Wright says that when her son went to close the gate to prevent the two women from trying to leave with her phone, Lowe nearly hit her son with her car while driving towards the gate.
“Get the f— out of my way. Get out of my f—ing way. Get the f— out of my way. Jesus Christ,” Lowe says in the deleted video.
When reached for comment by The Daily Beast, Lowe denied the allegations made against her by Trevino-Wright.
“In short this woman verbally and physically assaulted us,” Lowe wrote in an email, “stole my phone, kidnapped us, and tried to keep us from leaving, and filed a false police report which the police have already found to be untrue and when she couldn’t get me on anything because this is purely a political attack she is now making up more stories saying I tried to hit her son when he ran to the gate to lock us in and blocked the exit with his arms out. I did not try to hit him!”
In a statement to The Washington Post, Lowe claims that she showed up at the center because someone told her it was the best place to see what was happening at the U.S.-Mexico border. Lowe claims she had no idea the center had been the target of misinformation in the past.
Following Lowe’s visit, the center announced that it was closing. However, the center did not cite Lowe’s visit as the reason for the closure. Instead, they announced they would be closing for the three-day “We Stand America” rally, hosted by several conservative, anti-illegal immigration organizations.
Wright told The Daily Beast that she was warned by an acquaintance, former Republican Texas state lawmaker Aaron Peña, “to be armed at all times, or better yet out of town; that we shouldn’t even be at the center because they had planned caravans to cruise to the border.”
According to Wright, Peña said the center would be a stop on this “take action” tour.
Ben Bergquam, of the Steve Bannon-associated network Real America’s Voice, participated in the rally by recording himself in front of the center’s sign, holding a child’s shoe and wristband he claims in the video belong to a trafficked child.
Another protestor, South Carolina congressional candidate Lynz-Piper Loomis, posted a video of her and Christie Hutcherson, founder of conservative group Women Fighting for America, at the center during the rally. In the video, the two allege that child trafficking is happening at the center.
“Why are you more concerned about butterflies than you are than the little children who are being trafficked right behind this center?” Hutcherson asks the Biden administration and the center as she looks into the camera.
The two go on to describe in detail the child trafficking practices they allege are happening on the center’s grounds, showing to the camera the same child’s shoe and wristband Bergquam showed in his video.
While the center originally closed only for the three-day “We Stand America” event, on February 2, they announced they would be closed indefinitely due to “false and defamatory attacks directed by political operatives.”
The center also announced it will be implementing further safety measures, including additional security equipment, enhancements to the property, and “likely, personnel.”
The safety of the staff and visitors of the center is the primary concern of the center, says Dr. Jeffrey Glassberg, president and founder of the North American Butterfly Association.
“We look forward to reopening, soon, when the authorities and professionals who are helping us navigate this situation give us the green light,” Glassberg says in the statement.
Trevino-Wright says the misinformation stemming from the decision to build a wall has hurt the center’s conservation mission.
“When you’re targeted by laws that are designed to be destructive, it’s very difficult to continue operations as normal,” Trevino-Wright told The Guardian. “So it’s been disruptive. It’s been destructive. And it’s made it very difficult for us to focus on our mission, which is environmental conservation and education.”
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