Border securityU.S. may acquire additional land for constructing border fence

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) draft plan regarding the final sections of the border fence that separates the United States from Mexico could impact about 100 people, most reside in a nursing home, according to federal documents.

The Monitor reports that the project was postponed in March due to a lack of funding, but that could change with the Senate immigration bill and its border security provisions, which allcate $1.5 billion to a new border wall construction project.

For the residents of three communities in Texas (Rio Grande City, Roma, and Los Ebanos) the debates over building the wall are not an abstract issue:  two CBP documents indicate a second round of property condemnations, according to Scott Nicol, the head of the Sierra Club Borderlands team.

The Sierra Club obtained CBP records through the Freedom of Information Act, and these records show two CBP proposal. One agency proposal is a fence plan from late last year by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The second plan is a CBP Facilities, Management and Engineering department planning document from March titled “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Planning.”

The second plan calls for the government to notify property owners within the next six months whether it wants their land.

Nicol is concerned the fence draft will have a negative effect on human and wildlife.

“It’s an issue of CBP saying the water’s just going to pass right through these walls. The evidence with walls of almost the same design, in the past, shows that’s not the case,” Nicol told the Monitor. “Basically, if you stick a wall in the middle of a flood plain it’s going to act as a dam.”

The CBP cited an e-mail exchange with Nicol, which was forwarded to the Monitor, that said the agency has worked with International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC).

“On February 2012, IBWC’s Principal Engineer issued a letter approving that the referenced fence segments could be built without adversely impacting the floodplain, so long as CBP follows the proposed alignment and design, as well as provides maintenance and provides any future repairs.”

The Army Corps of Engineers plan notes, however, areas of deviation from the path approved by the IBWC. Also, an IWBC spokesperson said they did not receive a border fence plan from last year to evaluate.

The CBP stated in one of the documents that the IBWC warns it is an international treaty violation if flood waters are pushed away from the U.S. into Mexico, and according to Nicol, that could happen if the government’s fence draft is followed. He notes that gaps in the wall could flood even more U.S. lands north of the wall if substantial rain were to occur.

One of the documents state that 95 percent of cases which deal with the government taking land result in condemnation, which is when property owners are taken to court for their land. Nicols said that in most of these cases, the owners of the land usually do not have the money to take the government to court to get the best price for the land.

“They’re sort of guaranteed to get shafted,” Nicols told the Monitor.