Landowners living along the Texas/Mexico border are once again facing having property confiscated from them as Donald Trump’s administration ramps up efforts to build his long-promised wall.
And they are not happy about it.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, with Homeland Security flush with cash from the recently signed budget bill, property owners who sighed with relief when Trump lost in 2020 are once again having to deal with efforts to use eminent domain laws against them.
In the case of Raquel Oliva, whose family has been in Starr County since since 1798, “the government filed proceedings in February to take over a strip of the family’s land for construction of a wall. While the government is seeking ownership over fewer than 3 acres, it would block off some 100 acres where the family farms, hunts and operates a gas well, said Oliva and her cousin, Lazaro Rodriguez.”
The Journal’s Elizabeth Findel is reporting, “The government this year has filed dozens of eminent domain lawsuits against Texas landowners, continuing a process that began in the first Trump administration. The cases are complicated, often involving small patches of land with poorly documented titles and generations of owners,” adding, “Lawyers and landowners recognize that the government has broad authority to take land for national security purposes and resisting it is rarely, if ever, successful.’
Alejo Clarke Jr. has found himself once again in a bind after his property was returned to him when Joe Biden beat Trump in 2020, and now he is having to hire a lawyer to fight confiscation again with little hope of success.
With the report noting, “The government is offering just $3,000 for the acre it plans to take, leaving the rest of the 9-acre tract south of the wall. He’s also angry about the billions allocated, which he said would be better spent helping the region manage a water crisis that is crippling farms,” Clarke conceded, “I’m not gonna beat Trump—you know it and I know it. But if someone is going to kick your butt, are you just going to lie down?”
Longtime local Oliva agreed, adding, “No one has a problem stopping illegal immigration or drugs, but we live on the border—it’s always been like this. Now it feels like an invasion of the government on us.”
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