It still blows my mind that in some areas of the country, squatters have rights and can’t be legally removed for breaking into someone’s home.
From what I understand, it is due to English Common law inherited from Britain. During the middle ages various barons and landlords kept invading and seizing each others land so it was ruled that anyone who possessed the land for a certain amount of time could claim ownership under a concept known as ‘adverse possession’, which basically meant that if you wanted to get someone off your land after being absent, you had to go through a legal process.
In England itself, ‘squatters rights’ where repealed in 2012, but it seems that in some places in the US, it hasn’t been yet.