Latest news with #AlejoClarke
The Independent
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Texas families offered just $3,000 by the government in exchange for building Trump's wall on their land
The Trump administration has become embroiled in legal battles with families in Texas as it tries to take their land to finish off the president's border wall pet project. In a renewed effort to finish the $46 billion wall , Trump has started seizing land, mostly in the state's Starr County, and paying just thousands of dollars for it. Nearly all the land in the state of Texas is privately owned, including the land adjacent to Mexico's northern border. The Trump administration is now threatening to proceed with eminent domain-empowered land seizures if the homeowners don't play ball. Dozens of eminent domain lawsuits have been filed this year by the government. In many cases, the land at the center of those lawsuits is land that families have worked for generations, the Wall Street Journal reports. One man under the gun, Alejo Clarke, 76, told the WSJ that Trump is trying to take his land, and that if successful, the president will run a wall through his property that separates him from hunting and fishing grounds he's used for decades. Clarke lost his land to Trump's border wall aspirations during his first term, but regained it under President Joe Biden. The government is offering Clarke just $3,000 for his land. Raquel Olivia, 75, is also facing the potential loss of her land, telling the outlet that while the wall only requires three acres, it would cut her off from more than 100 acres she used for crops, hunting, and a gas well. As Trump insists his extreme border policies are necessary to fight an invasion of illegal immigrants, Olivia said the only invasion she sees is the federal government onto her property. "Now it feels like an invasion of the government on us," she told the WSJ. Eminent domain battles under Trump will be interesting to watch play out. Courts could rule in favor of the landowners, but court rulings have only sometimes stopped Trump from doing whatever he wants. The Trump administration took an opposing view on the use of eminent domain in June when it pushed back against Cranbury, New Jersey, after the city tried to seize a family farm. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins threatened that the administration was looking into the seizure and insisted that "we must protect family farms at all costs," according to Fox News. "Whether the Maudes, the Henrys or others whom we will soon announce, the Biden-style government takeover of our family farms is over," she wrote in a now-deleted June 17 post. "While this particular case is a city eminent domain issue, we @usda are exploring every legal option to help."
Daily Mail
03-08-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Texas homeowners sue Trump for border wall plans that'll ruin their picturesque walks and fishing spots
A group of Texas landowners are railing against President Donald Trump as he seeks to force them to sell parts of their property to build his long promised border wall. Residents in Starr County, in southern Texas, are being hauled to court to face off with high-powered administration lawyers who have filed eminent domain lawsuits. Eminent domain cases are used to force landowners to sell private property for public use, even if the owner does not want to sell. Alejo Clarke, who has lived in the county for 58 years, told The Wall Street Journal he is fighting back against the order. The Trump administration is seeking one acre of his land in order to erect the 18 foot wall. Trump was elected on a campaign promise to make America safer by securing the borders and conducting mass deportations. A spokesperson for the administration noted a border wall is 'the most safe and efficient way possible.' But Clarke claims doing so would cut him off from expansive plots of land where he has fished and hunted his entire life. 'I'm not gonna beat Trump - you know it and I know it,' he said. 'But if someone is going to kick your butt, are you just going to lie down?' Clarke maintained he has not noticed any security problems on his property, and said the billions of dollars the government has allocated to building the wall would be better spent helping farmers in the region bounce back from a water shortage. He claimed the government has offered just $3,000 in compensation for the land it plans to take. Clarke tried to fight a similar plan from the Trump administration during the first term in court by himself, but said that with only a seventh-grade education, he was out of his depth. Biden returned the land to him, but it's now once again at risk. He has hired a lawyer to help him fight the eminent domain lawsuit, but will struggle to afford the associated costs, he said. 'This is the piece they want to take out of me,' he said. 'My entrance y todo.' Raquel Oliva has found herself in a similar situation, fighting to keep land which has been in her family since 1798, growing crops of cotton, hay and tomatoes. The government filed proceedings in February to take over less than three acres of the family's land to construct a portion of the wall. But Oliva said the government's use of three acres would in turn block off access to more than 100 acres where her family has hunted, farmed and operated a gas well. The 75-year-old used AI to help her draft an objection letter to the government, arguing the wall would be detrimental to her family's work. She has requested a 16-foot access gate, an irrigation pipeline and more compensation. 'No one has a problem stopping illegal immigration or drugs, but we live on the border - it's always been like this,' Oliva said. 'Now it feels like an invasion of the government on us.' Since returning to power, the government has filed dozens of eminent domain lawsuits in Texas as the administration seeks to deliver on Trump's promise of securing US borders. These cases are often complex because they involve small patches of land with generations of owners and poorly documented titles. Some of the cases list upwards of 100 defendants who have ownership claims over tiny pockets of land, while others list 'unknown heirs' of late former owners. But Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said completion of the border wall is crucial to the government's policy and national security. ' Successful mass deportations mean nothing if we don't control the border and keep future illegal aliens out,' she recently wrote in a New York Post opinion column. 'That's why the BBB legislation also funds hundreds of miles of new border wall and water-based barriers in the Rio Grande, which will permanently secure the border for decades.' Trump is also ramping up a hiring spree for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The administration has carried out 239,000 deportations so far this year, according to data published by The Washington Post last lmonth.
