Land battle continues in Texas over border wall construction

Landowners in Texas are fighting the Trump administration over land for the border wall with Mexico

Despite the promise of Mexico paying for the wall, the Trump administration has allocated 46 billion taxpayer dollars to the project

The government still needs the land to do it. And in South Texas, some landowners are pushing back

The government can use what's called eminent domain, meaning they can take land for public use even if the owner doesn't want to sell it

And the property has to be taken for public use under the Fifth Amendment

But effectively, because of the Supreme Court decisions, public use has been determined to be public purpose

But it would be a public use to build the wall or a public purpose either way

So then the issue becomes the just compensation. Many of the landowners have hired attorneys

And those attorneys will mostly be there to help the owners get as much compensation as possible for their land

The other thing those attorneys can do is delay the taking of land as long as possible and hope the next administration isn't as dedicated to this project

I don't want to minimize the impact of delay. This was all teed up during the first Trump administration

and the delay followed by his failure to get reelected and the Biden administration essentially neglected

or didn't make the border wall project a priority, probably not surprisingly

So delay is what has prevented this project from going forward to date

There are also environmental concerns and lawsuits from conservation groups over the project

For Straight Arrow News, I'm Lauren Keenan. For more on this story, Download the Straight Arrow News app or visit san.com