{"id":594376,"date":"2018-06-22T07:30:57","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T13:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=594376"},"modified":"2018-06-22T07:32:22","modified_gmt":"2018-06-22T13:32:22","slug":"amid-immigration-debate-feds-moving-ahead-with-land-seizures-for-south-texas-border-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/06\/amid-immigration-debate-feds-moving-ahead-with-land-seizures-for-south-texas-border-wall\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid immigration debate, feds moving ahead with land seizures for South Texas border wall"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_594381\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-594381\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Border_Wall_6_CR_TT-771x517.jpg\" alt=\"Border fence\" width=\"771\" height=\"517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Border_Wall_6_CR_TT-771x517.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Border_Wall_6_CR_TT-336x225.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Border_Wall_6_CR_TT-768x515.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Border_Wall_6_CR_TT-1170x784.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Border_Wall_6_CR_TT.jpg 1250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Callie Richmond \/ for The Texas Tribune<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The border fence sits atop a levee on the periphery of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Hidalgo County in February 2017.<\/p><\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">As a national debate raged about family separations at the border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection told a group of South Texas officials earlier this week that the federal government plans to move forward with private land seizures in the Rio Grande Valley to build sections of President Donald Trump\u2019s border wall.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThey said that they got the money, they got the authority and they\u2019re going to move on trying to acquire the land,\u201d said U.S. Rep. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/henry-cuellar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Henry Cuellar<\/a>, a Laredo Democrat who attended the briefing in McAllen of a few dozen officials from cities, counties and foreign trade zones along the Texas-Mexico border.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/06\/21\/feds-moving-forward-land-seizures-border-wall\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Cuellar, who serves on the House Homeland Security Committee, said land will be seized\u00a0to build a section of wall<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>that&#8217;s already been promised funding;<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0o<\/span>n Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed a spending<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.appropriations.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/FY2019%20FSGG%20Appropriations%20Act,%20Report%20115-281.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bill<\/a><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>that includes $1.6 billion for about 65 miles of fencing in the Valley.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIn the next week or so we\u2019re going to find out how much more they\u2019ll be asking for the fencing to be built,\u201d Cuellar added.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">McAllen Mayor Jim Darling, who also attended the briefing, said he has heard that about 167 notices have been sent out to Hidalgo County landowners, 300 of whom are expected to be impacted by wall construction.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThey didn\u2019t discuss the funding too much because the Border Patrol guys wouldn\u2019t be involved in that,\u201d Darling said. \u201cThey discussed plans not for the total wall but the [sections]\u00a0they had prioritized for funding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Asked about the agency\u2019s plans, CBP spokesperson Daniel Hetlage said via email that, \u201cWe don\u2019t comment on leaked information to neither confirm nor deny.\u201d<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Cuellar emphasized that the land\u00a0seizures \u201ccould take years,\u201d noting that scores of eminent domain lawsuits still are pending from the last time the federal government seized land\u00a0a decade ago under the George W. Bush administration to build the first sections of border fencing in the Valley.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">However, an <a href=\"https:\/\/features.propublica.org\/eminent-domain-and-the-wall\/the-taking-texas-government-property-seizure\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">investigation<\/a> last year by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found that the federal government invoked a little-known Great Depression-era law that allowed it to swiftly seize land to build the barrier<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>and compensate landowners later.\u00a0Dozens of\u00a0landowners whose property was taken for the barrier still haven&#8217;t received compensation as lawsuits over the fair value of the seized land linger in court.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The investigation also found that during the process the U.S. Department of Homeland Security cut unfair real estate deals, secretly waived legal safeguards for property owners and ultimately abused the government\u2019s extraordinary power to take land from private citizens.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Most of the land the federal government seized back then ran along the Rio Grande. All told, the agency paid $18.2 million to accumulate a ribbon of land occupying almost half the length of the 120 miles of the Valley.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Darling, the McAllen mayor, said the federal government should be held to the same standard it holds cities and counties to when they use federal funds to buy land.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cUnder federal law when we take property, we always have to pay relocation, damages for the remainder,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s really weird: When we use federal money, it can delay\u00a0projects for about a year for environmental impact (studies) and the federal government says, \u2018Oh, we don\u2019t have to do that.&#8217;\u201d<script async src=\"https:\/\/cdn.texastribune.org\/pixel\/dot.min.29c708b3d0da5d17a725.js\" integrity=\"sha384-8Xwf\/TlQnmHiajg1t3dn8w4qlF1rmV33o5NAQVXYu0T2q3rHV5579zrSmRjh+XnM\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\" data-tt-canonical=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/06\/21\/feds-moving-forward-land-seizures-border-wall\/\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At a briefing in McAllen earlier this week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection told a group of South Texas officials the federal government plans to move forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":594381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,2260],"class_list":["post-594376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}