Democrat Senator on Trump’s Enthusiasm for Eminent Domain: ‘Language You’d Expect Out of Some Autocrat’

While Reps. Will Hurd (R–Texas) and Justin Amash (R–Mich.) have raised serious concerns about the wall’s implications for private property rights, many other members of Congress, including self-proclaimed small-government conservatives, don’t see this as a major issue.

But it is.

The federal government owns less than a third of the land on the southern border. The rest belongs to the states, Native American tribes, and private individuals. Most of the border land in Texas is private property, and as some of those landowners explained to Reason TV, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press, they don’t plan to go down without a fight.

If those landowners can’t count on the majority of congressional Republicans, they can at least count on folks like Sen. Michael Bennet (D–Colo.), who criticized Trump in a Senate floor speech on Thursday for his imminent use of eminent domain. Bennet’s comments came as the Senate debated a measure the House has already passed that would block Trump’s national emergency declaration.