Push to Build Border Wall Accelerates in Texas

[question everything]

(snip)

Since March, the government has filed 24 federal cases against South Texas landowners for the border wall, more than the previous eight months combined. The Trump administration has so far made little progress on the construction of a border wall, the president’s signature campaign promise.

Since 2017, the government has built 194 miles of wall along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, most of it replacing existing walls or fences. Three miles of wall have been constructed where none was before. The government has plans to build 731 miles at a cost of $15 billion. The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in an email that cases have accelerated after funding for the Laredo area was allocated in late 2019.

Of 250 landowners in the path of 69 miles of border wall planned for the Laredo area, about half have signed rights of entry to allow the government to survey for the wall, they said. Building a border wall in Texas involves a complicated preliminary process of obtaining property from hundreds of private landowners. If owners are unwilling to give up the land voluntarily, the government must sue them in federal court twice: first, for the right to survey and second, to actually take the land. That lengthy process is part of the reason why little new wall has been built in Texas. The government began suing landowners in Laredo for survey access this year while, farther south in the Rio Grande Valley, it has progressed to the second round of lawsuits.

“We had naively hoped that the government would put a pause or a moratorium on this, but instead they sped ahead,” said Ivy Le, a spokeswoman for Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit group that represents many landowners. “They just shouldn’t be doing these hearings during a pandemic.”

(snip)

Mr. Lopez’s neighbor, David Acevedo, takes the opposite view, and fights to keep the wall from crossing the land his family has ranched for three generations. The river is the only water source for his cattle, so access to it is critical, Mr. Acevedo said. He is hoping to find a lawyer before his July court date.

More..

https://www.wsj.com/articles/push-to-build-border-wall-accelerates-in-texas-despite-coronavirus-pandemic-11590581126 (subscription)

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. Why? Pretty sure we've ruined a generation of immigrants to want to come to this country.

Yayyy USA....plenty of new jobs for Americans in the food picking and roofing industries.

[question everything]

2. Because this has been his call to arm

Coulter and others will go after him if this is not accomplished to their satisfaction.

[Hortensis]

5. Yes, he's doing it to satisfy and distract his base to what's "important."

Everything Trump does is about HIM, and these days everything he does is about HIS reelection.

I didn't realize his base was so TX-focused, though. TX landowners on the border have a long, mostly successful history of fighting these attempts. The federal government, in contrast, owns all the border land in CA, AZ, and NM. Apparently just erecting another 167 miles of extra-tall spite fence there wouldn't have the same rabble-rousing effect.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. This is about him pocketing kickback $$$

he has chosen a buddy's firm to supply stuff for the wall.
He has decided now that he wants the wall painted in a special black paint "so when they try to get over it, it will burn them"
said paint job will add millions to the cost of the wall, including the already built sections.

Exactly the shit he pulled when he built his hotels & trump tower, which used concrete instead of steel, because the NY mob "owned" the concrete supply company.

same game with any and all Gov't contracts. It's what he does.

[Aristus]

4. I'm guessing the people pushing for it aren't the ones living on the border.

There are owners of private lands that straddle the border. I'm guessing they don't want a wall of the kind Trump is pushing for.