Thread by @ProPublica

1/ If Trump starts building his border wall, he can invoke something called a Declaration of Taking. It's like eminent domain on steroids. A court grants title to the land to the federal government. Bulldozers can roll the next day.

2/ The only fight, essentially, is over how much money the property owner will receive.

All of this "Taking" has happened before: after Congress passed The Secure Fence Act of 2006, which called for 654 miles of fence along the southern border. So we looked into how that went:

3/ ...and what we found was troubling. Wealthier property owners who could afford lawyers saw their compensation offers triple on average, while poorer landholders took what the government offered or bargained on their own for slightly more.

4/ Homeland Security appeared to have ignored the one federal law, the obscure Uniform Act, designed to protect the rights of property owners from lowball offers by the government. So we FOIA'd some things.

5/ Almost two years after filing a FOIA request, we received a copy of the doc that allows the gov. to waive many of the safeguards built into the law. It is just a two-page letter signed by a midlevel bureaucrat in U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
propub.li/2TzPnnz

6/ Once this letter is signed, as a property owner, or as an American citizen, your rights are limited. Negotiations are capped at 30 days. After that, they cut a check and take possession.

7/ Most of the land seized for the last border fence was in Texas’ poverty-stricken Rio Grande Valley. By changing the requirements, the government did not have to conduct a formal appraisal for more than 90 percent of properties.

8/ Bottom line: It's simple for officials to eviscerate what is already a pretty toothless law. And if Trump ever gets to build his wall, the federal government is going to need a lot of land.
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