A property law professor at the University of Texas notes that President Trump’s national emergency declaration may get him the money to build the wall, but only Congress can exercise the eminent domain power to get the land.
Categories
Can Congress Block Trump from Getting Border Wall Land?
A property law professor at the University of Texas notes that President Trump’s national emergency declaration may get him the money to build the wall, but only Congress can exercise the eminent domain power to get the land.
15 replies on “Can Congress Block Trump from Getting Border Wall Land?”
Currently there is right of access for border patrol. Could this possibly be ruled a precedent?
Throughout my experiences dealing with land values, the owners are entitled to the value of the property, regardless of what they think is the correct value. Ultimately, there are two ways to establish the value of properties in question: tax value or market value.
As an example, the county wanted to expand a road from a rural dirt road to a paved road. One of the owners was offered a sum equal to the tax value of the property for 750 feet of frontage. When he complained, the county said they were willing to reevaluate his property to come up with a value he would agree with. Since the entire 150 acres would be reevaluated under the terms, he decided to drop the objection and accepted the amount offered, which would maintain the current tax value while allowing for future sales at market values.
It was my understanding that the $1.3 billion for the wall were to be used specifically for 55 miles of the wall and only in particular areas in Texas where the local government didn’t object. 55 miles do not 20% of the wall make. As for buying the property, I imagined the funds would come out of that funding. There are thoughts out there that Trump can use the Military Construction budget and some other things in order to get more money to build the 234 miles or so that the famous $5.7 billion would have built, but that still sounds like just a start. Those miles were the priority according to authorities at the border, but surely there is more of the border that is traversable than that.
I have to agree that Trump should have begun the wall day two of his administration. However, I think day one should have been to clean house of any holdovers from Obama’s adminstration, especially from the DOJ! I don’t think we would be having such difficulties with getting the wall built if it had started early with the ‘deep state’ out of the way.
I had some occasion to work “land-use” issues for 5 years in the Pentagon. I felt compelled to do a bit of research. I think this will be some interesting information to consider.
HR 1505 112th Congress had 59 co-sponsors (2011-2012), but went nowhere. Go figure – the Obama years? Or, viewed as “over-reach?”
The following excerpted from that bill:
Here is a map showing the areas identified in HR 1505:
http://www.startribune.com/ring-around-the-country/125216454/
The boundary waters areas of Minnesota would have been the hot button item in the Start Tribune.
Contingency lawyers probably already foaming at the mouth in anticipation of huge settlements! But it is clear in the bill, that “some” waiver of laws already exists for DHS regarding the sections of land between US and Mexico.
Is some “professor” lawyer just stirring the pot? I suspect so. Care to guess his party affiliation? Bet it’s the one that got the party symbol from Andrew Jackson!
The Secure Fence Act of 2006 requires ” (2) physical infrastructure enhancements to prevent unlawful entry by aliens into the United States and facilitate access to the international land and maritime borders by United States Customs and Border Protection, such as additional checkpoints, all weather access roads, and vehicle barriers.” So I’d say Congress has already authorized the use of eminent domain if necessary.
Is it too early or did the “Share” buttons disappear today? Looks like I’ll have to do this old school and share this by copying and pasting the link – such barbaric conditions!
[spoiler title=” “]And I’m just writing this last sentence to see what the spoiler code looks like[/spoiler]
as I stated elsewhere:
The reasons the Wall did not happen in the first two years were:
1) Sen. McCain
2) Sen. Flake
Trump was convinced, by McConnell and Ryan, that Trump would lose on the border wall, and make Republicans look bad in the process.
Should Trump have pressed the issue anyway????
Yes, he should have. It would have helped make his argument that getting people with R at the end of their name is insufficient.
Oh and Ryan also lied to Trump that if he voted for the Omnibus spending bill, Ryan would get him the wall funding. Ryan never even really tried after the spending bill was signed.
In theory, I agree with Bill, however, if you offer one property owner more than “fair market value”, you will have to give that percentage beyond that “fair market value” for every square acre along the border. That was the purpose for the fair market value determination, of eminent domain takings.
BTW… Is there any way to add an “Edit” function to comments?
Comments can be edited after posting. However, you may have to refresh the page to see the edit button, since posting the comment does not do that so we don’t interrupt the video.
I just tested this. You do need to refresh.
Good to hear, Ralph.