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Good afternoon.
(b) (6)
Secure Border Initiative
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
(b) (6)
For more information about the Secure Border Initiative, visit www.cbp.gov/sbi or contact us at SBI info@dhs.gov.
Good morning.
Corresponding with article below, attached is this week’s real estate status update.
(b) (6)
Secure Border Initiative
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
(b) (6)
For more information about the Secure Border Initiative, visit www.cbp.gov/sbi or contact us at SBI_info@dhs.gov.
The hearing could jumpstart the long-stalled fence construction project effectively put on
hold in the Rio Grande Valley after the federal government sued property owners earlier this
year.
Among the defendants are the Hidalgo Economic Development Corp., the Rio Grande City
school district and the family of prominent McAllen attorney Roberto Yzaguirre.
"My client's land goes back in their family for generations," said Eric Jarvis, an attorney
representing Yzaguirre's family. "He doesn't want to agree to anything."
OBP006003
Representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Border Patrol began
contacting landowners last spring seeking access to survey their land and test its suitability
for stretches of fencing.
But dozens of them resisted, refusing access to surveyors as an act of protest against the plan.
U.S. attorneys then filed suit against them, asking a judge to force immediate access.
Many of those suits have languished in federal court since U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen
denied the immediate access requested by the government.
On March 7, Hanen ruled that the government was entitled to access a Cameron County
landowner's property but ordered further negotiations between the parties to settle on prices
for access and potential land seizure.
"There is contradictory and insufficient evidence before this court as to whether there has
been bona fide efforts to negotiate" with landowners, Hanen's 32-page opinion states.
Since the remaining Valley lawsuits involve many of the same legal issues, all have been
assigned to Hanen. He is scheduled to make a special trip from Brownsville to the federal
courthouse in McAllen this afternoon to hear the remaining cases.
Current plans call for 370 miles of border fence and 300 miles of vehicle barriers along the
southern U.S. border by the end of this year.
But earlier this month, representatives from the U.S. Government Accountability Office
reported that "keeping on schedule will be challenging because of ... difficulties in acquiring
rights to border lands."