For a while, it looked like the federal government was going to be able to run rough-shod over the Texas landowners on the border. After demanding and being refused access to much of the land on the border, the feds had gone to court claiming the "right of imminent domain" to just seize the land.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen has ordered the government to first try and negotiate access to the land. The government has not tried to negotiate, but has just demanded obedience to their will.
The case in question regards one acre of land owned by Eloisa Tamez. Judge Hanen has given the government two weeks to prove they have negotiated in good faith with Ms. Tamez.
The feds have now offered her $100 for access to the land, but her attorney, Peter Schey, says they will not agree until the government defines what they mean by "access". Is it just some unobtrusive surveying, or will the house on the property have to be torn down?
In the meantime, at least 38 other cases are pending, and the action in the Tamez case may apply to them also. Schey has filed court papers in an effort to turn the Tamez case into a class-action suit. He wants to include the people who have already agreed to the access, saying they were not told they had a right to negotiate.
Richard Stana of the Government Accountability Office recently testified to a House subcommittee that "keeping on schedule will be challenging because of...difficulties in acquiring rights to border lands".
It's still an uphill fight, and the landowners may yet lose. But the feds are learning that it's not that easy to run over a group of Texans.
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