Border fenceThe border fence looms over these Texans. Should the government pay them?

By Julián Aguilar, Kiah Collier, and T. Christian Miller

Published 15 December 2017

Long before President Donald Trump promised to build a wall, Homeland Security used its powers of eminent domain to seize hundreds of acres of land in south Texas to construct a border fence. Under the law, if the government takes or damages your property, it’s supposed to pay to make you whole again. In Texas, the agency has paid $18 million to landholders over the last decade. But scores of Texas landowners who have lived in the shadow of the border fence for years were never compensated for any damage to their property values.

One day several years ago, a crew of federal contractors turned up behind Melissa Solis’ family home, a modest house with white siding surrounded by fruit trees and farmland a few hundred yards from the Rio Grande. The workers cleared brush. They dug a deep trench. A pile driver sank steel deep into the ground.

The work was disruptive, the noise a constant distraction for Solis and her parents. Snakes and cockroaches streamed inside to flee the construction. The foundation shifted, knocking doors askew. When it was over, the Department of Homeland Security had erected an 18-foot-high metal fence behind the house – a border barrier to stop people from illegally crossing the river from Mexico into the United States.

The construction workers moved on. But Solis could not.

“It felt unreal,” said Solis, 43. “This is your life, your property. It’s not like you can pick up and go and relocate and move just like that.”

Long before President Donald Trump promised to build a wall, Homeland Security used its powers of eminent domain to seize hundreds of acres of land in south Texas to construct a border fence. Under the law, if the government takes or damages your property, it’s supposed to pay to make you whole again. In Texas, the agency has paid $18 million to landholders over the last decade.

In Solis’ case, the border fence passed within feet of her family’s property line. But since it did not actually cross it, Homeland Security decided it had no obligation to compensate her family for the dramatically changed circumstances of their property: the sudden presence of a looming fence 40 feet from their back window. 

Homeland Security made similar decisions for scores of other property owners, even though the fence likely reduced the values of their homes and land, according to a review by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.

“We’re on a budget, and unfortunately my parents, they’re not rich, you know?” said Solis, a charter school employee. “It’s like who can I call? Who can I send an email to?”

The government’s actions were legal. For Solis and others, they still didn’t seem quite fair.