Eminent Domain

Texas Landowners Face a Difficult Decision: Allow Border Wall or Lose Right to Property

Recent reporting from The Texas Tribune details shocking accounts of government overreach against landowners along the southern border.

Jeremiah Alondra | 6.17.2026 11:13 AM

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(Adani Samat/Midjourney)

Landowners along the southern border are feeling the consequences of a Donald Trump campaign promise more than a decade in the making: the creation of a border wall. 

Equipped with billions of dollars in taxpayer funds, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has begun surveying remote West Texas land for wall construction. For some in Texas' Big Bend region, these surveys may mean forfeiting their property rights, some for land their families have held for generations. 

Earlier this year, CBP sent Right of Entry for Construction (ROE-C) letters to Texas landowners along the border, offering a signing bonus of up to $5,000 in exchange for allowing government contractors to survey their property for border wall construction. Failing to comply with the request or refusing to quickly sell their property, the letters warned, would risk a government lawsuit condemning their property........

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