A new report from the Government Accountability Office has detailed the Trump administration’s efforts to acquire land on America’s southern border to facilitate construction of the president’ border wall. So far, the government has secured 135 tracts of land and it is working to acquire another 991 in order to fulfill one of Trump’s key campaign pledges.
That has been far from straighforward as the government has been forced to either reach agreements with landowners or take them to court in order to seize property. According to the report, the Department of Justice filed 109 lawsuits against landowners between January 2017 and July 2020. People who have had their land seized outright have been provided with compensation of between $1,440 and $870,261 per acre.
This chart shows department of Justice lawsuits filed to acquire/gain access to land for border wall construction.
