Free Republic

The federal government last week revealed it intended to use eminent domain to wrest a 1.3-mile stretch of New Mexico borderland from the Catholic diocese for a border barrier, but church officials in federal court filings Friday argued that doing so would violate their religious freedom. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol first announced last summer that it intended to build a border wall along the southern skirt of Mount Cristo Rey in Sunland Park, which the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces owns. Officials told Source NM at the time that site “was a major human smuggling infiltration site...

The Trump administration has moved to seize more than 14 acres of land owned by the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces to expand border‑wall infrastructure near Mount Cristo Rey in southern New Mexico, according to court documents reported by KVIA. The effort puts federal border‑security construction on a collision course with religious‑freedom protections tied to one of the region’s most significant Catholic pilgrimage sites. If approved by a judge, the action could disrupt annual pilgrimages and set a legal test for using eminent domain against religious institutions along the U.S.-Mexico border. The civil case was filed at the request of...

A video posted by reliable Fox News reporter Matt Finn shows illegal immigrants ravaging a mountain in Sunland Park, New Mexico, while Border Patrol agents apparently won’t defend it, calling the mountain the Cartel’s. Finn wrote in the video post, “Unbelievable. A Border Patrol agent in Sunland Park, NM just told us a mountain in the United States is ‘not ours’ anymore. ‘It’s theirs.’ Referring to Cartels. We literally spent five minutes on Mt. Cristo Rey and a group of illegals breezed by.” Mt. Cristo Rey is adorned by a 29-foot-tall statue of Jesus, which was erected in 1940 after...