New Bill Would Stop Eminent Domain Abuse Along the Border

President Trump’s proposed border wall would cut across nearly a thousand miles of privately owned land, so to build this project, the administration would need to use eminent domain to seize the land—something that the president is eager to do. Aside from the unpleasantness of taking people’s property without their consent, federal eminent domain use comes with it a particularly obnoxious component: the government can take the land but not provide just compensation until years later. New legislation would stop this practice.

As I wrote in 2017:

Right now, when Border Patrol wants to take someone’s land, they send them a letter offering them a nominal low sum of money for their land and threatening to file condemnation proceedings against them if they don’t accept it… . [But] under the eminent domain statute, the federal government can seize property almost as soon as it files a condemnation proceeding—as soon as the legal authority for the taking is established—then they can haggle over just compensation later.

It’s called “quick take.” Quick take eminent domain creates multiple perverse incentives for the government. 1) It can quickly take land, even when it doesn’t really need it, and 2) it has no real incentive to compromise or work with the land owner on compensation. The owner’s bargaining power is significantly diminished. The federal government already possesses the property. This means that for years, people who are subject to a border wall taking go without just compensation.

An NPR analysis of fence cases found that the resolved cases took more than 3 years to resolve. In many other cases, the process took more than a decade for a court to determine just compensation, and some cases are still pending more than 12 years later. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has determined that this “quick take” eminent domain does not violate the 5^th amendment requirement that no “private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” The reasoning is that as long as the person will eventually get compensation, the taking is constitutional.

The awful component of this process is that, in order to challenge the taking, the property owner must not accept the offered payment. But the border wall will go up on their land just the same. Meanwhile, they have to fight in court without getting the compensation that they deserve. Many people cannot even afford to challenge the taking for this reason alone.

Today, Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) introduced the Eminent Domain Just Compensation Act to deal with just this issue. “It is unjust for the government to seize someone’s property with a lowball offer and then put the burden on them to fight for what they’re still owed,” Rep. Amash said in a statement. “My bill will stop this practice by requiring that a property’s fair value be finalized before DHS takes ownership.”

It makes this reform by amending Section 103 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1103), which details the powers of the Secretary of Homeland Security.  Current law provides that:

The [Secretary of Homeland Security] may contract for or buy any interest in land, including temporary use rights, adjacent to or in the vicinity of an international land border when the [Secretary] deems the land essential to control and guard the boundaries and borders of the United States against any violation… When the [Secretary] and the lawful owner of an interest identified pursuant to paragraph (1) are unable to agree upon a reasonable price, the [Secretary] may commence condemnation proceedings pursuant to section 3113 of title 40.

The Eminent Domain Just Compensation Act would amend this provision by adding that: “the Government may not take any land prior to the issuance of a final judgment pursuant to the proceedings under section 3113 of such title.’’ This language forecloses the opportunity for the Trump administration to seize land quickly for the president’s unnecessary, ineffective, and costly border wall without first fully compensating the owners.