As Trump Threatens "National Emergency" Declaration, Texans Brace for Eminent-Domain Battles

A historic church Trump wants to seize and level for his "wall."

Donald Trump - a malignant narcissist - claims he can inexpensively and expeditiously take privately owned land and build his wall so that his knuckle dragging, racist supporters will remain loyal to him and continue to believe his lies. In doing so, Trump lays bare his utter ignorance of what hundreds - if not thousands - of eminent domain lawsuits will entail.  Numerous eminent domain cases launched under George W. Bush's administration are still pending and unresolved. The other as yet unaddressed issue is how Trump thinks he can take tribal lands granted to tribes by treaties which grant the tribes and their lands as sovereign nations.  Expect litigation that will go on for decades at huge taxpayer cost.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at how Texans, including a Catholic diocese, are already preparing to fight Trump's attempt to seize their lands.  Here are excerpts:

Nayda Alvarez wants nothing to do with any border wall, but her acre of land in Rio Grande City, Tex., where she lives in a brown house along the dividing line between the United States and Mexico, has become of great interest to the U.S. government.

She, along with dozens of other landowners in the Rio Grande Valley, received surprise letters from the federal government in recent months, requests from officials who are seeking access to their properties for surveys, soil tests, equipment storage and other actions. It is, lawyers and experts say, the first step in the government trying to seize private property using the power of eminent domain — a contentious step that could put a lengthy legal wrinkle into President Trump’s plans to build hundreds of miles of wall, some of which passes through land like Alvarez’s.

Previous eminent domain attempts along the Texas border have led to more than a decade of court battles, some of which date to George W. Bush’s administration and have yet to be resolved. Many landowners, like Alvarez, are vowing to fight anew. Alvarez refused to sign over access to her property, which was handed down from her grandfather. . . . “I’m against the wall because I’m going to get evicted by it,” said Alvarez, a 47-year-old high school teacher. Efrén C. Olivares, racial and economic justice program director at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said approximately 100 landowners have received new government letters seeking access to private property for the purposes of determining how — and where — the wall could be built. The letters are the first of a two-step process the government uses in cases of eminent domain, lawyers involved in the cases and experts said. It first requests to survey the land, a step to which landowners often agree. If the land is suitable for the government’s intended use, it moves to take the land either by convincing the owners to sell or turning to the courts to force the sale. South Texas residents are familiar with this fight. When Bush signed legislation in 2006 known as the Secure Fence Act, authorizing hundreds of miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, court battles quickly began between people in the region and the government.  But much of the land the Bush administration requested was already owned by the federal government, said Gerald S. Dickinson, an assistant professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh who focuses on land use and constitutional law. The wall Trump wants to build would be different, he said. “If it’s going to be a contiguous wall across the entire southwest border, you’re talking about a massive land seizure of private property,” he said. Most people, he said, are not willing to voluntarily hand over their land, even with a fair market price, forcing the government to go to court to obtain it. “You’re talking about thousands and thousands of eminent domain proceedings that would have to run through federal district courts in Texas for the most part, but also places such as Arizona and New Mexico.” The Texas Civil Rights Project is now trying to let people know that they are not required to sign over access to their land. They are going door-to-door in some neighborhoods, letting people know their rights, and they are running digital ads and spots on local radio stations. They also plan to host town-hall style meetings. Trump has long defended using eminent domain claims, which he once invoked — unsuccessfully — in trying to force a New Jersey widow from her Atlantic City home, saying that “without eminent domain, you wouldn’t have any highways.” The Atlantic City Casino Redevelopment Authority sent the woman a notice offering her $250,000 for her property and threatened an eminent domain seizure. Trump was trying to build a limousine parking lot next to his Trump Plaza casino.  A New Jersey court ruled against Trump and the authority.

[A]according to a 2009 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general. “Gaining access rights and acquiring nonfederal property has delayed the completion of fence construction and may increase the cost beyond available funding,” the watchdog wrote, describing the act of taking over property as “a costly, time-consuming process.”

Those in court fighting the government include the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville, Tex., which is contesting a request to survey land that includes La Lomita chapel, a small church built more than 150 years ago where Mass, weddings and funerals are held and a Palm Sunday procession takes place each year. . . . . Taking the land to build a wall, McCord said, substantially burdens the exercise of religion, and the government hasn’t articulated a compelling reason it needs to build a wall there. Alvarez also is girding for a legal battle, ready to protect what is hers and to fight against what she believes is an unfair process. She feels as though politicians in Washington don’t understand the way of life in the Rio Grande Valley, where residents cross international boundaries regularly and ride four-wheelers in the woods along the border. And she does not want to leave her home.

“I think they assume we’re ignorant. . . . They’re threatening. They say, ‘You sign, or we’ll take it away,’ ” she said. “This is my house.”

The only fun aspect of this sad saga is that Trump is alienating Texas voters not to mention other "red states" where federal employees will be going without pay and facing financial ruin - e.g., both Texas and Utah have large IRS centers where employees are on furlough and going unpaid. And meanwhile, many federal court cases have ground to a halt including one where clients have sued the federal government.  Due to the shutdown, the government lawyers are asking for extensions and delays because their offices are closed. 

All of this so Trump can stroke his insatiable ego and posture for his foul and ignorant base of supporters.