If Trump’s Border Wall Becomes Reality, Here’s How He Could Easily Get Private Land for It

MSN ^ | 25 March 2019 | T. Christian Miller

[BeauBo]

It’s a fundamental power, laid out in the Fifth Amendment. The government can take your land to build public works... The federal government rarely loses its bid to take land. Under a special procedure, federal officials can file a Declaration of Taking that results in a court granting immediate title to the land. Bulldozers can roll the next day. The only fight, essentially, is over how much money the property owner will receive.

[DoodleDawg]

I was under the impression that there is already an easement on the border - so why would the owner receive any compensation?

Because an easement allows the owner of the easement to use the land. It does not allow them to occupy the land or prevent the legal owner from using the land. A wall would do both.

[DoodleDawg]

No need to buy entire properties all along the border wall.

You're going to need to buy all the land on the Mexican side of the wall.

[entropy12]

Plz explain why we need any Mexican land if the wall is entirely on US side of the border. Wall can be built entirely from one side since it is basically installing pre-fabricated sections.

[BeauBo]

“Why would the wall require more than a 30-40’ wide strip of land?”

Ideally, the Border Patrol would like to maintain a 150 foot clear area to detect people near the barrier, including their patrol road. In urban areas, the 150 foot enforcement zone would be an exclusion area with a big barrier on each side, stadium lighting, constant camera surveillance, and wired with alarms - to achieve near 100% detection of intruders.

In rural areas, just a single barrier with a patrol road and some clear shoulders will suffice.

To determine what they need in a given location, they calculate detection time, intercept time and time required for illegals to disappear, in those different terrains. In some urban areas, fence jumpers can get into a car, run into a mall, or disappear through backyards in just one minute; while in very rural areas they might require days on foot.

Good barriers deter a lot of people, but if wired with technology (surveillance and alarms) they also serve as the primary tripwire to call the cops for an arrest. The 150 foot clearance gives them enough room for some really effective detection technology.

[entropy12]

Good I formation! Thanks!!

[BeauBo]

“You’re going to need to buy all the land on the Mexican side of the wall.”

My understanding is that the Government plans to offer to buyout all the land on the South side, so the Government does have to budget to buy it all.

But I believe that only the 150 foot wide strip will be condemned and taken, if the owners do not want to sell. In many cases, land in the rivers floodplain south of the levee is great flat farmland, which farmers can continue to productively work if given a gate with keypad access.

In other cases, owners just do not want to sell the rest of their land, and can negotiate some lower settlement for the damage done to their land value, or to their use of it.

[DoodleDawg]

Plz explain why we need any Mexican land if the wall is entirely on US side of the border. Wall can be built entirely from one side since it is basically installing pre-fabricated sections.

I'm talking U.S. land. The wall is not going to be built in the middle of the Rio Grande or not exactly on the border in some cases. It will be built out of the river away from the flood plain. On land it could be built some distance away from the border if the topography required it. All land between the wall and the Mexico border will be unusable to the owner and would have to be purchased.

[BeauBo]

I thought it was just the geography of the river that made the Roosevelt Reservation a non issue in Texas. Good to know that it is simply non-existent in Texas.

Like you say, they will work it out in the end.

But if they do get it done in the Rio Grande Valley and Laredo (as they plan to do with this year’s money) everything that is left will be relatively a lot easier.

This year’s effort is the long pole in the tent, in terms of difficulty, cost, and impact on overall border control.

[Dawgreg]

There is one that is willing to do so.

Thanks! They all ought to. One I know of has been killed if memory serves me. They’re on the front lines along with border patrol.......

[BeauBo]

"explain why we need any Mexican land if the wall is entirely on US side of the border."

It is not for Mexican land, but for US land that is cut off by the barrier.

Because of binding treaty with Mexico, any construction that could effect flooding must be approved by the International Boundary and Water Commission. The net result is that the barrier has to mostly run along the existing flood control levees - which can be over a mile from the river in some places.

Folks on the South side of the wall further East near Brownsville/Matamoros (where Bush built barrier) have had trouble with the police, fire department or ambulances responding in an emergency. Land values drop, and business suffers.

This map shows the area East of McAllen/Reynosa. You can see the pink shaded area that is South of the levee, but North of the river. That is going to be on the wrong side of the barrier, due to construction requirements of the hydrology there - they are not far from the Gulf of Mexico, and are periodically hit with hurricanes.

[BeauBo]

When they have public hearings in New Mexico and Arizona, ranch owners are typically calling for the Government to build barrier to protect their families, land, and livestock. Security is their issue, and they all have war stories of narcos and desperados, as well as loads of people in dire straits from thirst, exposure, illness and exhaustion.

The Leftist Governor of New Mexico gets an earful for opposing the wall from most of the border ranchers.

Bi-lingual people of Hispanic ancestry in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, whose homes and yards will be directly impacted by the barrier path are typically the most opposed (Not In MY Back Yard effect). Some of their families have owned the land for more than 300 years.

There is also a lot of social pressure to oppose the wall there, as a kind of virtue signalling of ethnic identity. Laredo is the least diverse city in the United States - over 95% Hispanic. Even so, people practically have security concerns - so many who say they don’t want a wall, really do.

Also, the planned barrier in the Rio Grande Valley includes a massive FEMA hurricane rated upgrade to their levees, as the foundation of the bollard barrier. That is a hugely valuable infrastructure upgrade that otherwise would not likely get funded for a generation. So many local politicians may pander to the electorate by denouncing walls as a cultural affront, but eagerly look for a face saving way to be “forced” into accepting it.

[Theoria]

Being .gov, they have a horrible track record on paying the right owners or even taking the right property.

'An investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune shows that Homeland Security cut unfair real estate deals, secretly waived legal safeguards for property owners, and ultimately abused the government’s extraordinary power to take land from private citizens.

The major findings:

* Homeland Security circumvented laws designed to help landowners receive fair compensation. The agency did not conduct formal appraisals of targeted parcels. Instead, it issued low-ball offers based on substandard estimates of property values.

* Larger, wealthier property owners who could afford lawyers negotiated deals that, on average, tripled the opening bids from Homeland Security. Smaller and poorer landholders took whatever the government offered — or wrung out small increases in settlements. The government conceded publicly that landowners without lawyers might wind up shortchanged, but did little to protect their interests.

* The Justice Department bungled hundreds of condemnation cases. The agency took property without knowing the identity of the actual owners. It condemned land without researching facts as basic as property lines. Landholders spent tens of thousands of dollars to defend themselves from the government’s mistakes.

* The government had to redo settlements with landowners after it realized it had failed to account for the valuable water rights associated with the properties, an oversight that added months to the compensation process.

* On occasion, Homeland Security paid people for property they did not actually own. The agency did not attempt to recover the misdirected taxpayer funds, instead paying for land a second time once it determined the correct owners.

* Nearly a decade later, scores of landowners remain tangled in lawsuits. The government has already taken their land and built the border fence. But it has not resolved claims for its value.

[BeauBo]

Shortly after President Trump came into office, the budget projections for the barrier program were significantly increased.

One of the reasons given for that was an increase in the budget for compensating landowners, based on the lessons learned in the Bush-era Secure Fence Act Program (2006-9), and a conscious decision to try to take care of the land owners.

[Trump Girl Kit Cat]

Why not pay Me icon for their land AND build the damn wall on Me icon side of the border, NO WACKO environmentalists, NO permits, NO frigging judges interfering AND Mexico needs the money!!!!

[Trump Girl Kit Cat]

DAMN spellcheck Me icon= Mexico

[BobL]

If it’s an emergency, the owners don’t get a say (and since many, or most, are in with the cartels, either voluntarily or by force, it’s just as well).

The only issue will be the level of compensation for these properties, but ONLY after the wall is built.

[BeauBo]

“Why not... build the damn wall on Mexican side of the border?”

In Texas where the river is the border, and it keeps shifting its course and flooding periodically, we would end up with a complicated mess of Mexican property, sovereignty and humanitarian issues (e.g Grandma’s hut on the wrong side of the barrier).

But more pertinently, Congress has already granted the Administration the authority to waive dozens of time consuming environmental and other laws, and judges have already ruled on the expected challenges. It is not a constraint.

We can already control everything on our side (a new Mexican President might decide to demolish the wall, after the check cleared).

[gleeaikin]

A major problem with the border wall is that the Rio Grand weaves back and fourth so that currently fences have been erected from loop to loop leaving large patches behind the fence to the south, and hard to access without some way of going through the barrier. Check with Google Earth to see just how loopy this border river actually is. So presumably a lot of people own significant chunks of land that may be cut off, not just a 60 foot wide border alongside the river.

[usnavy_cop_retired]

I have seen eminent domain in action. My client, an old country attorney, had a portion of his business property taken for a road widening project. The land is not in question. The government gets it if they can show it is for a government use, (Kelo was not law then). The only issue in court was the value of the property. The government always low balls it. The landowner, in this case the attorney, has to show that the loss of use of the property is more than the government’s appraisal. In the attorney’s case, he was able to show plans that he had taken steps on to build a commercial office building which justified his demand for thousands of dollars more for loss of future income.

[Gene Eric]

>> However, an easement & OWNERSHIP of that land are 2 different things.

Indeed, one has privileged domain of the other.

What’s your point?