Building Trump’s much-ballyhooed border wall will requiring using eminent domain to forcibly take the land of numerous property owners. If that happens, many of the property owners probably will not get anything like adequate compensation. A just-published study conducted by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune analyzed over 400 condemnations undertaken as a result of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorized the construction of a much smaller barrier than Trump’s proposed wall. Here is their summary of their findings:

An investigation by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune shows that [the Department of] Homeland Security cut unfair real estate deals, secretly waived legal safeguards for property owners, and ultimately abused the government’s extraordinary power to take land from private citizens.

The major findings:

• Homeland Security circumvented laws designed to help landowners receive fair compensation. The agency did not conduct formal appraisals of targeted parcels. Instead, it issued low-ball offers based on substandard estimates of property values.

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