Can’t “take back” land you never had title to.
There was a large section of Utah that Clinton grabbed to put it off limits to mining. This land has the largest reserve of low sulfur coal (clean burning) in the world. This was done to pay back some illegal campaign contributors outside the country.
I'll grant the technicality.
But you must agree that one can take land they never had title to. (To use a preposition to end a sentence with.)
Anyone who can hold and defend the land from all comers owns it.
When Utah became a State....how much land did Uncle Sam have title to....
That’s a question, not a challenge because I don’t know...
just like the feds say states cannot enforce immigration law as the feds have jurisdiction over the exterior of the country... the states have full control over everything within their borders. this is why sheriffs have jurisdiction over feds while in their counties.
The states of the Southwest were in turn created by the Federal Government, and took the lands in question from the Indians, who had no concept of land ownership, only tribal territorial rights. Still, in the case of Utah I recall a crooked deal between the Clintons and the Riadhi family of Indonesia, which helped the latter corner the market on low-sulfur coal.