# Border property
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 5, 2017, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828 "2017-04-05T17:17:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2017, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/21 "2017-04-05T22:00:45Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#):
>
> **Moderator Note**
>
> Fixed.
Danke.
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### Author:  [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2017, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/22 "2017-04-05T22:52:48Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#):
>
> Just the market value of the farmland … the money can then be invested elsewhere to replace the income …
>
> Just ask their permission … with the right incentives I’m sure they’d be glad to offer up the land … if this stops cocaine and heroin from coming into the USA, then people will stop moving the filthy white shit into Mexico … you’d think Mexican authorities would be glad of that …
>
> … or not ask permission … what are they going to do … suspend NAFTA …
>
> I’m not sure it would be easier to build The Wall on the Mexican side of the Big Bend area anyway … if it was easy to complete The Wall, it would be already completed …
>
> The wall is useless if it’s not guarded … and if we hire the guards for the border … we won’t need The Wall … this is ALL congress’ fault …
Lordy, God Almighty. This is General Questions, not Great Debates. Are these factual answers?
There are both legal and practical implications for where and how a border wall can be built. The main issue is posed by the Great River, which acts as the border between Texas and México. For obvious reasons, building a wall down the middle of the river is not practical. As the articles discussing the problems regarding border properties make clear (usually), the wall will often have to be inland from the river a bit (often built on the solid ground just north of the river’s floodplain). Then there are the places where the river is damned, er, that is, dammed, creating reservoirs. And, of course, in some places, the border is either south or north of the river, making things marginally easier.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2017, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/23 "2017-04-05T23:17:19Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#):
>
> The main issue is posed by the Great River, which acts as the border between Texas and México.
Google Maps shows the border varies from the river. It was surveyed at some point, and the Rio Grande moved, leaving some parts if the USA in Mexico, and some parts of Mexico in the USA.
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/24 "2017-04-06T01:28:47Z")
> [@leahcim](#):
>
> Yeah, the article is a little misleading on that count. The CNN video is careful to say “on the Mexican side of the wall” rather than the less-accurate “in Mexico”.
> [@DSYoungEsq](#):
>
> Lordy, God Almighty. This is General Questions, not Great Debates. Are these factual answers? … [snip]
I’m comfortable that there’s a **Factual Answer** here for the OP’s **General Question** …
> [@boytyperanma](#):
>
> I watched [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEBDA1MsYKc) Anderson Cooper piece earlier today.
>
> With the Loop’s property fell on the path of the wall. The US eminent domained a path for the wall leaving them with two pieces of property. They put in a gate so the family would still have access to their house that was on American soil, south of the wall. This was a major problem when they had a house fire and fire trucks couldn’t get to them.
… and I think there’s more to be said in the matter …
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/25 "2017-04-06T09:11:29Z")
As week or so ago, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke raised some eyebrows by suggesting that the wall might be built on Mexican territory. Kinda sorta maybe, depending on what you make of it.
What he said was, we can’t reasonably build it down the middle of the river, and we’re not going to build it on _our_ side, effectively ceding the river to Mexico.
[Put the border wall on Mexico’s side? Trump’s interior secretary raises eyebrows](http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2017/03/29/put-border-wall-mexicos-side-trumps-interior-secretary-raises-eyebrows)
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### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/26 "2017-04-06T09:29:37Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> As week or so ago, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke raised some eyebrows by suggesting that the wall might be built on Mexican territory. Kinda sorta maybe, depending on what you make of it.
>
> What he said was, we can’t reasonably build it down the middle of the river, and we’re not going to build it on _our_ side, effectively ceding the river to Mexico.
>
> [Put the border wall on Mexico’s side? Trump’s interior secretary raises eyebrows](http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2017/03/29/put-border-wall-mexicos-side-trumps-interior-secretary-raises-eyebrows)
I rather suspect he was edging towards saying no wall of any kind along the part of the border delineated by the Rio Grande, but put resources into some other method of detecting, deterring or repelling incursions.
Legalities aside, the problem with putting the wall on Mexican territory is obvious. The Mexicans could just demolish it.
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### Author:  [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/27 "2017-04-06T13:53:21Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> Google Maps shows the border varies from the river. It was surveyed at some point, and the Rio Grande moved, leaving some parts if the USA in Mexico, and some parts of Mexico in the USA.
Is that actually true? Google maps is not known for its accurate cartography when it comes to borders, and I thought the general rules for “river” borders is that _natural_ changes in the river’s course are reflected in the border, but _artificial_ changes are not.
Does the actual wording of the border treaty say “The Rio Grande”, or “The Course of the Rio Grande as it exists now”, or something else entirely?
[Here](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/opinion/a-bend-in-the-river.html)’s an article on a bit of land, the Horcón Tract, that was cut off from the US by an (illegal) artificial change in the course of the river, that by right _should_ have stayed US territory, but over the years the tract kind of became Mexican by osmosis.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/28 "2017-04-06T14:55:06Z")
It was surveyed in the land grab after the war with Mexico.
“The Treaty negotiators understood all too well that their line was to a certain extent arbitrary. So, they added a requirement to investigate its entire 2000-mile length, commissioning a bi-national survey to record, measure and draw the new boundary’s position on the ground. A decidedly 19th-century project, this quantitative and qualitative measuring assumed it could cement the relationship between the words on the page and the line in the sand, as if declaring it both legally and physically would make it practically so.”
Sorry I can’t find a [shorter cite](https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/drawing-a-line-encounters-with-the-us-mexico-border). I will post a better one if I find it again.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/29 "2017-04-06T15:14:10Z")
> [@Horatius](#):
>
> Yeah, this. There have been many abuses of eminent domain in recent decades, but this is clearly not one of them. Building a border wall is one of the few things that literally cannot be done in some other location, and as such is exactly the sort of project that justifies the existence of eminent domain.
>
> Anyone who doesn’t know about this has only themselves to blame.
Yeah. I hate when ED is used legitimately, just makes it easier for them to steal someone’s land to build a shopping mall. But the feigned ignorance is annoying in this case. Who wouldn’t realize the potential problems with owning border property?
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2017, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/30 "2017-04-11T07:51:25Z")
> [@DrCube](#):
>
> Eminent domain sucks, but it’s been the law for a thousand years. Nobody owns anything, they’re just renting it from the government. Adjust your real estate shopping accordingly.
I’ve always read that in an eminent domain proceeding, the former owner is entitled to just compensation, usually meaning fair market value plus reasonable damages for disruption, relocation, etc. I don’t think that’s quite the same as just renting from the government.
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### Author:  [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2017, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/31 "2017-04-11T07:55:33Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#):
>
> I’ve always read that in an eminent domain proceeding, the former owner is entitled to just compensation, usually meaning fair market value plus reasonable damages for disruption, relocation, etc. I don’t think that’s quite the same as just renting from the government.
Watch the video I linked earlier, in the case of border properties for the walls the land owners got less than just compensation.
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### Author:  [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2017, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/32 "2017-04-11T12:15:40Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#):
>
> I’ve always read that in an eminent domain proceeding, the former owner is entitled to just compensation, usually meaning fair market value plus reasonable damages for disruption, relocation, etc. I don’t think that’s quite the same as just renting from the government.
Sure. Whatever you want to call paying thousands of dollars per year for property you don’t control and have no choice in whether it gets sold or to whom.
Also, econ 101 was a long time ago for me, but I’m pretty sure a “market price” requires both the seller and buyer to voluntarily agree on it. Not just the party with the most guns and lawyers on their side saying “you’ll accept this price or go to jail”.
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### Author:  [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2017, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/33 "2017-04-11T14:36:47Z")
> [@DrCube](#):
>
> Also, econ 101 was a long time ago for me, but I’m pretty sure a “market price” requires both the seller and buyer to voluntarily agree on it. Not just the party with the most guns and lawyers on their side saying “you’ll accept this price or go to jail”.
You might want to brush up on your old textbooks, then. Fair market value (slightly different than market price) is what an item would trade for at a fair auction. A recalcitrant seller can’t raise the market value of his land, even if he might demand a higher than market value if he was selling voluntarily.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2017, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/34 "2017-04-11T14:57:23Z")
> [@DrCube](#):
>
> Also, econ 101 was a long time ago for me, but I’m pretty sure a “market price” requires both the seller and buyer to voluntarily agree on it. Not just the party with the most guns and lawyers on their side saying “you’ll accept this price or go to jail”.
Under rulings on the [5th Amendment](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fifth_amendment):
While the federal government has a constitutional right to “take” private property for public use, the Fifth Amendment’s Just Compensation Clause requires the government to pay just compensation, interpreted as market value, to the owner of the property. The U.S. Supreme Court has defined fair market value as the most probable price that a willing but unpressured buyer, fully knowledgeable of both the property’s good and bad attributes, would pay.
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### Author:  [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2017, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/35 "2017-04-11T15:27:11Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> Yeah. I hate when ED is used legitimately, just makes it easier for them to steal someone’s land to build a shopping mall. But the feigned ignorance is annoying in this case. Who wouldn’t realize the potential problems with owning border property?
I don’t know, they’ve apparently owned it since 1921, and no one had suggested putting up a wall in the first 80 years or so they owned it.
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### Author:  [@Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pilgrim_Shadow)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2017, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/36 "2017-05-28T08:26:43Z")
See the great international atrocities visited upon the citizens of [Estcourt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estcourt_Station,_Maine) Station, Maine.
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2017, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/border-property/783828/37 "2017-05-28T09:00:19Z")
> [@Pilgrim\_Shadow](#):
>
> See the great international atrocities visited upon the citizens of [Estcourt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estcourt_Station,_Maine) Station, Maine.
Or a much more interesting article [here](http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-incredible-complications-of-living-atop-the-us-canada-border)
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