A nonprofit dedicated to carrying out President Donald Trump’s vision of a border wall has arrived in South Texas. The group, We Build the Wall, plans to use private funds to erect a 3-mile stretch of 18-foot steel fence on the property of a sugarcane farmer in Hidalgo County. As plans move forward, the outfit’s founder has spread misleading claims on social media about a local priest and nearby nature preserve—part of a trend of conflicts between the nonprofit and the border communities it operates in.
Last week, We Build the Wall—which has the support of former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and Kansas politician Kris Kobach—announced they were clearing land for the fence next door to the National Butterfly Center, a well-known nature preserve whose director has been an outspoken critic of the wall. A local reporter—along with the butterfly refuge’s director, Marianna Treviño-Wright, and Father Roy Snipes, a local Catholic priest—took to the Rio Grande in Snipes’ boat to pass by the farm and film the cleared land. In the video, Treviño-Wright referred to the group as “fraudsters,” and Snipes voiced a general distaste for the border wall. Since then, We Build the Wall’s Florida-based founder, veteran and conservative activist Brian Kolfage, has lashed out.
In an interview with right-wing news outlet The Rundown, Kolfage smeared Snipes, a beloved figure in the border town of Mission known for his love of Lone Star beer and vocal defense of a historic chapel threatened by Trump’s wall. “[Snipes] is promoting human trafficking and abuse of women and children,” Kolfage said, referring to the priest’s criticism of border fences. “Instead of driving around in expensive boats with media he should be helping … to combat the rampant pedophilia in the church.” Since Friday, Kolfage has also tagged the butterfly center in about 30 tweets, accusing the refuge of assisting the cartels, implying it has ties to insect smuggling, and labeling the center “left wing thugs with a sham butterfly agenda.” (The center, for its part, has been lambasting Kolfage as well, sometimes including the hashtag “#LiarLiarPantsOnFire.”)
