Mauricio Vidaurri and his two brothers all served in the military and worked for Border Patrol. Now, his family's Texas property is vulnerable to the Trump administration’s plan to build 500 miles of new border wall by the end of 2020. mollyhf reports:
It isn’t clear where on the property the wall would be built. However, as in other parts of South Texas, it’s expected to be erected north of the river, which to Vidaurri feels like ceding land and water to Mexico. The Border Patrol has promised to be sensitive to property owners’ needs, but Vidaurri fears he will lose access to the cemetery and to the river water he relies on to irrigate his hay fields.
Last week, a federal judge in Texas ruled the president’s emergency proclamation unlawful and issued a nationwide injunction preventing the administration from using the Pentagon money. But the judge found it could tap into a separate $2.5-billion drug interdiction fund, allowing construction to proceed.
Mauricio Vidaurri’s daughter gave him a belt buckle commemorating the founding of his family’s ranch, La Laja, on a Spanish land grant in 1750. Vidaurri’s family and other landowners have already received “right of entry” letters from the federal government seeking to survey their ranches, a first step toward taking the land through the legal process of eminent domain. In the past, many South Texas landowners have consented to such surveys and ultimately sold, often at a loss, according to Ricky Garza, an attorney at the nonprofit Texas Civil Rights Project who is helping Vidaurri and half a dozen others who have received the letters.
“We probably are not going to be able to block the wall on anyone’s property. This is going to be a case of fair compensation,” Garza said. “There’s not a lot landowners can do because the law is so favorable to the government.”filed its first land acquisition case to condemn about 13 acres in the Rio Grande Valley, offering the owner $93,449 — or about $7,200 an acre.
Mauricio Vidaurri and his brothers all worked for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which has access to their ranch gates to patrol the land, install cameras and sensors. But the family opposes a border wall that they said would not deter illicit activity.
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