The US government is moving ahead with plans to seize land to build a border wall with Mexico, but south Texas landowners are not giving up without a fight.
The US government has started giving notice to many homes and businesses in the Rio Grande Valley, telling them that it wants to acquire their land. A law called eminent domain allows them to do it.
It’s part of President Donald Trump’s promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico. The aim is to keep undocumented immigrants and drug smugglers out of the United States.
But many living along the US side of the border, some for generations, could pay the biggest price.
Landowners who grew-up along the Rio Grande River said they fished in the river, swam in it, and picnicked along its banks. A wall, they say, would end that, completely cutting them off from the Rio Grande.
The little white chapel of La Lomita, adorned with its simple cross, sits tucked away in deep, south Texas near the City of Mission. It is peaceful. La Lomita has a connection, personally and spiritually, to just about everyone in the city, says Father Roy Snipes.
The little chapel sits about a mile from the Rio Grande River and the border with Mexico. Placing a barrier to stop the flow of undocumented migrants and drug traffickers has been discussed for more than a decade. Only now, it seems more imminent than ever. And if it’s built atop the levee, La Lomita Chapel would be cut off from the people who have worshiped there for generations.
La Lomita is not the only place threatened by the possibility or perhaps the probability of a wall.
Along the border, hundreds of miles are dotted with homes, businesses, and tracts of land that could be taken by the U.S. government for its wall. Eminent domain gives the government the power to take private land or property.
Ruben Villareal is the former mayor of Rio Grande City. “We’re entitled to rights as property owners. So here you have the federal government taking people’s property for a questionable technology that’s going to cost billions of dollars that may or may not secure the border,” he said.
While eminent domain is supposed to require the government to pay a fair price for seized property, Villareal says that isn’t happening.
Nayda Alvarez, a school teacher and homeowner in Starr County, says the government is doing just that to her.
“They come in and say the only thing we can discuss is the price – a price, really? And they start at a hundred dollars. That’s where they start off with. If you look at the paperwork, it says nominal.
They use the word nominal. So they don’t care. They just want us out of here,” she said.
The National Butterfly Center sits about two miles from the border with Mexico, where hundreds of species of butterflies and birds make their home. But the wall could cut a huge swath through the sanctuary. About 70% of it would be wiped out.
The National Butterfly Center went to court to stop the seizure of its property. The case was dismissed, but they’ve filed an appeal. What’s happening on the border, as Trevino-Wright says, is a travesty.
Legal scholars say the power of eminent domain gives the government the upper hand. Over time it may well prevail, but lawsuits by landowners could tie things up in the courts for years.
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