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TX landowners “don’t have to sell their land” despite govt. efforts to build boarder wall: Expert

According to the Wall Street Journal, the government is rushing to survey the land in the Laredo area for a border wall. Legal Director of Racial and Economic Justice Program for Texas Civil Rights Project Efrén Olivares joins Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers and Zack Guzman to discuss.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: Present Donald Trump-- 2020 was looking like an easy path to re-election, at least a few months ago. But now, with those China tensions rising as well as rising unemployment, there aren't a lot of campaign promises that he can point to in an election year that he's met. That would include his most unique campaign promise, the border wall with Mexico that he said Mexico was supposedly going to be paying for.

As "The Wall Street Journal" reports, since 2017, the government has built only 194 miles of the wall along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, mostly replacing fences or walls that were already there, back to only three miles of wall that's been constructed where none was before. But that's not for lack of trying.

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Getting new walls built often requires intense legal battles with landowners on the border. Despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we are seeing a renewed effort on that front to get homeowners out of the way for that wall. And for more on those battles playing out right now, we're joined by a Efren Olivares. He's legal director at Racial & Economic Justice program for Texas Civil Rights Project.

Mr. Olivares, appreciate you taking the time. When we look at this, it's an interesting legal case because you do have homeowners that are living in these regions. So what right now are you seeing play out as government makes this renewed push here?

EFREN OLIVARES: Well, thank you. We have been alarmed, if perhaps not surprised, that the government has doubled down on its effort to continue building border walls despite the pandemic. And in fact, we have a clients and condemnation cases who live at the property where the government wants to build a border wall.

And while they try to shelter at home-- we have a client who is 75 years old. And the government is trying to send out surveyors and construction crews to his home property as part of this effort to continue building. Since the month of March, the government has filed 24 new condemnation cases to try to take private property from South Texas landowners. And that's more than they had filed in the previous eight months. So we have definitely seen a spike in efforts since the pandemic began.

ZACK GUZMAN: So definitely an uptick there. But when you look at the process, I mean, how does it work in terms of what the government needs to show in order to, I guess, build on these properties, right-- because they wouldn't need to get access to look and survey and then also need to get access to start building as well. So how complicated and how long does this process take if the government does get done what it wants to?

EFREN OLIVARES: It can be a long and complicated process. But the most important thing is for landowners to know that they don't have to sell their land voluntarily if they want to. Some landowners might want to do that, and that's their right. But if they don't agree with it, they don't have the right. They don't have the obligation to sell their property.

And many landowners don't know that. Unfortunately, there are no Miranda rights in eminent domain proceedings. So the government doesn't have an obligation to tell the landowners that they can say no. But if they do say no, then the government has to show at least three things-- that it has the authority to take the land, that it is for a public use, and that it's paying for it fair market value.

And it is this last point-- the fair market value-- where we're seeing the government really undervalue the property, insisting on paying only $100 for up to 18 months of access to these properties to surveying and other proprietary work. It's preposterous.

ZACK GUZMAN: I mean, not only that, but it also seems like a pretty big inconvenience for any homeowner out there who doesn't necessarily want to deal with the legal battle. But those costs-- who pays for that when you are trying to defend yourself, because I assume a lot of people out there might not know a lawyer offhand that might be able to help them in this battle?

EFREN OLIVARES: You know, we are a nonprofit. We are currently representing 16 landowners free of charge. It costs us some of our resources, but we don't charge our clients. But for everyone else-- and there's dozens of cases out there-- people have to pay out-of-pocket for their own lawyers. Otherwise, they are on their own against the federal government and all its resources.

ZACK GUZMAN: In terms of winning those cases, I mean, I assume the national security element of all this, which the president has been pretty adamant about, probably makes it a little bit harder to push for the government here to take the land necessary to build this wall. So what are you seeing play out in terms of defenses for these people you're talking about that you're representing? How is that battle shaking out now as we move further along in the process?

EFREN OLIVARES: You're right. The national security element is a challenge for us because the courts traditionally defer to the executive when it comes to matters of national security. One of the arguments we have been making in the last two months is that right now, in the middle of the pandemic, it is not an emergency to take these properties right away.

The landowner should be allowed to shelter at home to not have to deal with dozens of construction workers on their property without wearing protective equipment, without wearing masks or gloves. And the rulings on those motions are still pending. So we're hopeful that the courts will agree with the landowners to protect their lives, their well-being, and their health.

But it remains to be seen. At the end of the day, if a landowner does not agree with the amount that the government is trying to pay, they have a right to request a jury trial. So we're hopeful that we will take some of these cases to trial and then have a jury decide how much these landowners are entitled to from the administration.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and real quick-- last question here because we're talking about, you know, progress here on three miles of a 2,000-mile border. How many overall houses, people, have you looked into that might be implicated by this new push year if we're just seeing it start up in earnest?

EFREN OLIVARES: You know, it's important for people to realize that all that the government is trying to build is right on the river. In some areas, it's half a mile north, up to a mile north of the river. So there is going to be a whole swath of land between the wall and the river-- so-called No Man's Land.

And in Starr County in particular, the proposed path goes through significant residential areas. So we're talking about dozens of landowners, including an orphanage in Laredo, a nursing home in Starr County, who are at risk of being destroyed by this border wall.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and as we noted, I mean, we are in an election year. So all of this could change rather quickly. But Efren Olivares, legal director of Racial & Economic Justice program for Texas Civil Rights Project, appreciate you giving us the update there and chatting with us today.

EFREN OLIVARES: My pleasure-- thank you.