How taking Land for Building ‘the wall’ may be a Problem for Texas Landowners

Most discussions on ‘the wall’ are simply political; is it right to shut down the border? However, we often forget what the very real impact the construction has on landowners along the proposed construction route. For example, if President Trump were to complete his border wall, he would need to go through the second hole in a golf resort in Brownsville, Texas. This 135-acre course is so close to the border between U.S. and Mexico that the fairway is kept green due to the Rio Grande, and Border Patrol agents can usually be found patrolling near the clubhouse. In fact, it’s so close that it’s not unusual for golf calls to end up in Mexico.

Trump faces many hurdles in the building of the wall, including finding enough documented construction workers and a potential lack of concrete, but his biggest hurdle will be the use of eminent domain, which means taking land from private owners for public use. Private and state-owned lands constitute two-thirds of the U.S.-Mexico border, with federal and tribal lands taking up one third. If the wall were to be built and eminent domain were used, it would lead to costly time-consuming negotiations with hundreds and possibly thousands of private landowners.

When an eminent domain procedure begins, the homeowner will receive a visit from a government official, or a letter from the government, stating that their property is required for public use. This often leads to a settlement, sometimes after a lawsuit filed by the government.
When George W. Bush was president, the government built a large fence along some parts of the border. To do so, they used eminent domain to utilize the needed land. According to some experts, the government only offered to pay the value of the small strip of land that would be used for the fence and didn’t take into consideration that this wall would split properties in half.

The law that authorized building the fence stated that the fence would stretch about seven hundred miles across the border. Of the two hundred and twenty-five miles that were to be constructed in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, more than half was to be on lands not owned by the federal government. Two years after it started, the project got stuck. It was stated in a report by the Department of Homeland Security that what had delayed the construction was gaining access rights to that land and that gaining those rights would increase the cost immeasurably, possibly even beyond the available funding. In 2009, the federal government still needed to purchase land from more than four hundred and eighty landowners.

Prior to acquiring the land to build the wall, government officials would need to do a survey the sites, start voluntary sales negotiations and owner relocation as well as file lawsuits against those homeowners who refuse to sell. Starting the wall in Texas, the most obvious spot to start would be on a levee that is currently owned by the government and traverses the border region.
Fifteen of the eighteen holes in the Brownsville resort sit on the south side of the levee, which also houses more than 200 plots on the south side, American flags flying on its porches. If the wall is built, this property would be relegated into no-man’s land, and that is just one of the many possible examples of in-between land that currently exists today.

Homeowners in these patches of land, some Trump supporters, are still against building the wall on their property. The owners of the golf course stand to lose more than $1 million in lost property value.

Where does it stand?

Bottom line is that President Trump will not be able to build his wall without the government having to enforce eminent domain against hundreds or possibly thousands of landowners, creating a very complicated situation for all of them, including himself.
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