Giving Compass' Take:

• In this story from YES!, author Lornet Turnbull looks into the consequences of a U.S.-Mexico border wall for families, the environment, and communities.

• The author argues that a border wall would have effects that reach beyond the sphere of immigration. How can environmental and community advocates in border states prepare for these effects? What other unintended consequences could we expect?

• To learn more about what border walls can accomplish, click here.

There’s a corridor within the Lower Rio Grande Valley through which rare and endangered species of wildlife move freely from Mexico into a national refuge and across the rest of South Texas. It’s an oasis for rare birds and butterflies, ocelots, and other wildlife. It’s also where, this week, construction crews began tearing down forest, between the National Butterfly Center and Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, to build part of President Trump’s border wall on a levee high above the river.

It’s also where, this week, construction crews began tearing down forest, between the National Butterfly Center and Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, to build part of President Trump’s border wall on a levee high above the river. In the weeks ahead, more than 350 acres will be destroyed to clear a path for 33 miles of concrete and steel wall.

“Today they began tearing down the forest in the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge, four miles from my house. I have no words” [said] Tiffany Kersten, a biologist and board member of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Sierra Club. “We don’t have a border crisis; we don’t have a security crisis.”

Land targeted for wall construction ... includes the National Butterfly Center, a 100-acre nature preserve, as well as the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park—land that the federal government doesn’t own.

Read the full article about the border wall by Lornet Turnbull at YES! Magazine