ICE RAIDS OHIO GARDEN IN FIRST OPERATION OF BUTTERFLY-TRACKING PROGRAM
TOLEDO, Ohio — Federal agents armed with butterfly nets descended on the home of an 84-year-old Toledo woman Tuesday, in the first public operation of a Department of Homeland Security program that uses tagged monarch butterflies to locate migrants who, officials say, “won’t self-deport.”
The raid was triggered by more than 400 Bluetooth pings from Ethel Kowalski’s lavender patch.
“Entomologists have been attaching tiny Bluetooth transmitters to track the butterflies’ migration patterns,” a Justice Department spokesman said. “We’re using it to get the ones who won’t self-deport.”
The program, Operation Monarch Watch, adapts a university research project that fits monarchs with transmitters weighing less than a grain of rice. The tags ping cell towers along the migration route, allowing scientists — and now agents — to follow the swarm in near real time.
Agents spent three hours sweeping the Kowalski property. No migrants were found. Fourteen butterflies were detained and later released after agents determined they had hatched in Ohio. “Hatching here makes them citizens, technically,” one agent said. “The department is reviewing whether that applies to insects.”
Entomologists expressed concern that the program misunderstands the data. “The butterflies fly to Mexico in the fall and come back in the spring. That is the entire data set,” said one researcher, who asked not to be named because his grant is up for renewal. A DHS official dismissed the concern: “We call that a pattern of recidivism.”
Mrs. Kowalski, who has lived in the house for 51 years, said the agents were “polite, but they kept sweeping the nets over my foxgloves.” Her garden gnome was photographed and released.
Migration researchers note the program has so far located no migrants, only gardens — and that the only creatures self-deporting on schedule are the butterflies, who have done so voluntarily every autumn since long before there was a border to cross.
The department confirmed Tuesday it has awarded a $180 million contract to expand the tagging operation. Phase Two, officials said, will target hummingbirds.
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