Seizure of Private Border Land Without Just Compensation (Until Years Later)

The House Homeland Security Committeewill markup and likely pass the Border Security for America Act (H.R. 3548) today. Among thebill ’s 95 pages is this:The Secretary of Homeland Security shall take such actions as may be necessary (including the removal of obstacles to detection of illegal entrants) to construct, install, deploy, operate, and maintain tactical infrastructure and technology in the vicinity of the United States border to deter, impede, and detect illegal activity in high traffic areas.Media outletsare describing this as codifying Trump ’s “border wall.” I havepreviously detailed the numerous problems with building a border wall, including the fact that it would require huge amounts of private land along the Southern border. This deprivation of the right to private property is serious, but it ’s compounded by the fact that the government seizes the land first and only then, many years later in some cases, provides just compensation. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has long agosigned off on this procedure. It ’s a problem that Congress must fix.The Problem of Seizing Private LandFigure 1 is a map of the border that shows the federally owned portions in green. Tribal land, which comes with its own restrictions, is green with black stripes. The existing border fencing is in black and yellow. The yellow portions are vehicular barriers, and the bolded black is the pedestrian or “real” fence. The dotted line in Texas is the Rio Grande River. As you ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs