As President Joe Biden put a temporary halt on Trump administration border wall construction, landowners are now in limbo on having their border property seized by eminent domain, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Biden's White House is weighing a permanent end to border wall construction, as only 450 miles of the 741 miles of 30-foot steel fencing has been completely by the Trump administration.
"We're happy with the pause, but we just don't know what's going to happen," Reynaldo Anzaldua, who has been helping his cousin fight the property loss, told the Journal.
One developer Paul Daniec fought the eminent domain order in court, settling for $69,000 that was paid on the day Biden was inaugurated, per the Journal.
"I went to cash that thing as fast as possible, in case Biden wanted it back," Daniec told the Journal. "The eyesore wall didn't get built. I can go build my cedar fence instead."
An estimated about $2.7 billion in funding for the border wall is not yet spent, congressional aides told the Journal.
"I'm hoping they're using this time to get their ducks in a row to cancel these contracts," Texas Civil Rights Project lawyer Ricky Garza told the Journal. "I'm concerned we'll get into a situation where the zombie walks forward, but is never actually killed."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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