Texans on southern border vow to fight Trump’s efforts to take their homes for border wall
By Arelis R. Hernández
Dec. 6, 2019 at 11:25 p.m. EST
BROWNSVILLE, Tex. — Salvador Castillo was yearning for tranquility when he became enchanted by a one-acre homestead close — but not too close — to the city, a place where cows graze beneath whispering mesquite trees on the property’s edge.
This was Texas living, the Afghanistan war veteran thought, not the thin-walled apartment and constant din that aggravated the emotional scars of his work providing security for Air Force operations. Castillo and his wife bought the home using military benefits and grew their family into their new neighborhood — about half a mile from a bend in the Rio Grande, near where it ends its journey through mountains and deserts and the valley, spilling into a sandy delta at the sea.
They never imagined a border wall could dissect their property someday. But the first letter, stamped with an official government seal, arrived about a year ago. Their neighbors, the Carrascos and Trevinos, got them too.
The United States wanted permission to enter and survey their land — three homes targeted in two neighboring U-shaped Texas subdivisions — in preparation for construction of the Trump administration’s new border wall system.
“We were astonished,” Castillo said, noting that the government letter basically sought unlimited access to his family land with no preclusions. His wife, Yvette Arroyo, threw the first letter away, but the lawsuit that came next was a bit more intimidating. “We were like, ‘Hell no!’ We don’t like this. It’s very intrusive.”
President Trump aims to build 166 miles of border barrier in Texas, almost all of it slated to go on private land that the government has yet to acquire — thousands of parcels along the river, an unknown number of them occupied by their owners, including churches and single-family homes. No new border wall has been built on private land in Texas since the president took office, but land acquisition in the Rio Grande Valley is about to enter a new phase this week, as U.S. attorneys began filing initial petitions in court while making cash offers to property owners, according to Justice Department officials with knowledge of the process.
On Friday, the federal government filed its first land acquisition case to condemn nearly 13 acres of private property in the Rio Grande Valley, a parcel near the river levee in Hidalgo County. The owner was offered $93,449 in compensation for the land.
The fight that likely will ensue pits Texans against Trump, who has long said he wants to take whatever land he needs to build his signature promise to America. Landowners, including some who support Trump, are preparing a legal fight that could stall the wall-building effort and lead to years-long court battles over private land rights, family homes and what the Trump administration deems a critical national security issue.
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A growing number of South Texans have not signed those letters and are facing federal lawsuits seeking access to their land. Some said in interviews they have refused to sign because they have concerns about the process or oppose the border wall project.
The Brownsville neighbors, who are no fans of the wall, ignored the letters. One family threw it away. Then came the calls, the text messages and the visits from U.S. attorneys to their work and home.
“I stopped answering the door,” said Arroyo, a teacher, of the multiple visits from lawyers, U.S. Border Patrol agents and Army personnel. “Going to battle against the federal government is not something we will win. But we are not going to take this lying down.”
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Elvia Carrasco has no idea if the metal markers seven feet inside her backyard fence line means that is all contractors will need, or if the construction will run right through the middle of her home.
After years of working and living in Minnesota, Carrasco and her husband moved south, living in a recreational vehicle in Brownsville for a few years before buying a home in 2015 large enough to fit her entire family for holiday reunions.
“Imagine fitting six adults and grandchildren into an RV for Christmas,” said Carrasco, 62, laughing as she tended to the young guava, plum and lemon trees in the backyard botanical garden she has cultivated. The survey marks cuts into her garden.
The couple poured their savings and the money they earned from the sale of their other home into the down payment on their border home, and then spent tens of thousands of dollars on outdoor electricity and an aluminum shed Carrasco’s husband built as a “man cave.” Their border home is an oasis.
“Nothing happens out here,” Carrasco said. “Sometimes I spend all day outside pruning and talking to God and my flowers and plants about all this. I’m not going to let them take what we worked so hard to earn.”
Castillo and Arroyo expect their property value will drop when the barrier is built, and they have suspended all home improvement projects, trying to ignore the cracked blacktop driveway and the failing brick exterior and waiting to repair the master bathroom.
Skinny PVC pipes poke out from the ground where the couple started and stopped installing a sprinkler system. The frame of an unfinished treehouse sits hollow in the middle of the backyard. Instead, the family is saving money in case they have to move.
“We’re kind of trapped,” Castillo said, his youngest son giggling in a tree swing and his daughters feeding grass to a passing horse they dubbed Philippe after the horse in the Disney film “Beauty and the Beast.” “Why am I going to invest in my property if I’m going to have to stare out at a wall or lose it entirely? I’m leaving. I can’t stay here.”
Castillo’s ancestors settled in the Rio Grande Valley in the late 18th century as ranch hands and saddle makers. They are naturally “border people,” and more Texan than American, he said. When he moved into the home, he brought his great-grandfather’s gravestone along and placed it in the southeast corner of his yard — inches from a spray-painted wooden stake the government placed there in September. It is labeled RGV-HRL-7528-2.
He sees the effort to take his land as a betrayal of his service to the country, but he says he is trying to be realistic.
“This is what a certain majority of Americans wanted,” he said. “So because of their desire, I have to swallow it, accept it and take the hit. I guess this is service of a different kind to that America. It’s easy for them to judge; it’s not their backyard.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/texans-on-southern-border-vow-to-fight-trumps-efforts-to-take-their-homes-for-border-wall/2019/12/06/ef7c1fa8-1525-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html
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