Trump administration has acquired little of the private land in Texas it needs for border barrier

[Elderberry]

The Washington Post by Nick Miroff and Arelis R. Hernández 10/26/2019

Trump administration has acquired little of the private land in Texas it needs for border barrier

The Trump administration has acquired just 16 percent of the private land in Texas it needs to build the president’s border barrier, casting doubt on his campaign promise to complete nearly 500 miles of new fencing by the end of next year, according to the latest construction data obtained by The Washington Post.

And of the 166 miles of border barrier the U.S. government is planning to build in Texas, new construction has been completed along just 2 percent of that stretch a year before the target completion date, according to the construction data. Just four miles of the planned border wall in Texas is on federal land — the other 162 lie on private property.



Faced with intense pressure to meet Trump’s 500-mile campaign pledge, administration officials have instead prioritized the lowest-hanging fruit of the barrier project, accelerating construction along hundreds of miles of flat desert terrain under federal control in Western states where the giant steel structure can be erected with relative ease.

More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/trump-administration-has-acquired-little-of-the-private-land-in-texas-it-needs-for-border-barrier/2019/10/26/d43c617e-f4f2-11e9-8cf0-4cc99f74d127_story.html

[Fishrrman]

Time to get busy with those eminent domain suits.

SEIZE that property. TAKE IT and get that wall a-buildin'...
(and this is one case where I fully support "the power of the government" over the power of individual land owners, at least at the border. The future of our country depends upon getting that border barrier built, and those land owners have NO RIGHT to stand in the way of a project of such importance).

Sorry if anyone doesn't like that.
I do not care.

[Elderberry]

Eminent Domain Along the Southern Border: Government Seizures of Private Property

https://immigrationforum.org/article/eminent-domain-along-the-southern-border-government-seizures-of-private-property/

How many eminent domain lawsuits are pending from the Secure Fence Act?

More than a decade after the original 334 cases were filed in South Texas after passage of the Secure Fence Act, there are approximately 60 to 70 eminent domain cases that are still pending. The cases remain unresolved mostly due to disagreements about the proper amount of compensation to the landowners.

The cases that have been resolved took an average of approximately three-and-a-half years to be settled. A DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) report accurately predicted in 2009 that these eminent domain cases would be “a costly, time-consuming process” leading to substantial negotiation and litigation.

Does the federal government plan to continue seizing property along the Southern border to build barriers?

Yes. The federal government continues to send survey notices and purchase requests to landowners along the Southern border, in part because of the Trump administration’s efforts and issuance of a national emergency declaration to build a border wall. Landowners in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas continue to receive notices from the federal government requesting access to survey their property, as well as to conduct soil tests and store equipment, the first step in the government’s acquisition of private property through eminent domain. A director with the Texas Civil Rights Project estimated in January 2019 that the government sent approximately 100 landowners new notices for the purpose of surveying how and where border barriers could be built. Earlier, in July 2018, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)  had recently requested more than 200 survey notices in South Texas in Starr and Hidalgo counties.

The federal government is sending survey notices to a broad range of property owners. Noel Escobar, the Mayor of Escobares, Texas along the Rio Grande, received letters from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and CBP requesting his consent to survey his property to possibly build a border barrier. The Rio Grande City School District also received a letter in May 2018 identifying  a mile of district property the government is considering acquiring for “tactical infrastructure, such as a border wall.”

In addition, as recently as January 2019, the Justice Department placed online job postings for new attorneys to handle border wall litigation in south Texas, an indication of upcoming litigation surrounding future property seizures.