Efforts to acquire the land have been underway for two years, but it is conventional wisdom down there to hold out for a better price. About 400 landowners are involved for the contracted miles, and up to 1,000 are likely before the whole program is complete.
Eminent Domain (and the emergency declaration) can allow the Government to take possession of the needed land in a matter of days, and negotiate the compensation later. Some cases from the Bush-era Secure Fence Act construction remained unsettled ten years after the barrier was built.
These reported court filings likely indicate that construction on those 108 miles is about to begin in earnest - perhaps a dozen or more crews working simultaneously there, early next year.
Thank you for posting this.
I appreciate all of your updates on the progress of the wall.
Hi.
Are the words, “eminent domain,” in the article?
Thanks.
5.56mm
We went through this before. No thanks to Kay Bailey Hitchenson (R-TX) who stopped the fence building by allowing law suits from land owners.
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.'
I can think of no other reason except maybe they themselves are crossing the border illegally back and forth for whatever purpose..
“The Trump administration is preparing to submit court filings as early as next week as a necessary step toward seizing private land in Texas”
It seems to me the only folks that would object to the wall are the ones that don’t have an endless streams of illegals crossing their land.
It is called Eminent Domain.
The acquisition of land has been a process that has been going on before start of President Trump’s term of office.
Just more scare media from the fake news media.
It is called Eminent Domain. Governments use it to acquire highway right of way, land for schools, utility e3asements, army bases. No big deal. Routine.
As long as the land owners are being compensated fairly take it.
Some don’t want the Wall for ideological reasons.
I say fine, don’t build the Wall there. Funnel the illegals over their land. See if they cry ‘Uncle’.
If not a reception committee can be waiting at those locations.
Perfect. What we really need though in the wild areas is about a 10 mile buffer / no-man’s land on either side of the border. Most of that land just holds the world together anyway.