Quote:
Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage
If Trump can legally do it, why not? Obama and Bush before him took whatever they could get away with legally...why not Trump?
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It may not be as easy as you think. Most people probably don't realize (1) the government doesn't own most of the land that they expect to build the wall on, and (2) those people who do own the land and don't want to give it up have the ultimate hole card - the 5th Amendment of the Constitution.
Excerpt from Above the Law:
People need to understand, the government does not own a 2,000-mile long stretch of land between the U.S. and Mexico. The people who do own it, which includes privates citizens, farmers, and churches, do not want to sell it. The government will have to take it from them.
There is no “military eminent domain” that Trump can invoke, national emergency or not, that supersedes the Fifth Amendment. And the Fifth Amendment only allows for takings for public use and just compensation. People will fight the government’s definition of “just” compensation. People will fight the government’s definition of “public” use. There’s a whole part of takings cannon that deals with whether or not the land is being taken in whole or only in part. People will fight by saying that their whole parcels are being commandeered by the erection of an ugly 30-foot physical barrier.
THIS WALL WILL NOT HAPPEN. There’s no conceivable way that the courts are going to let the government take all of this land, for a dubious public use, when less intrusive measures can be used to accomplish the stated public purposes, at a price point that the government is willing or able to pay.
