The Texans who don't want a wall

This was definitely a "thing I didn't know."  Excerpts from an Atlantic article - Why the Wall Will Never Rise:Trump is no match for the Texas border barons.

If President Donald Trump ever gets the funding for his long-promised wall, he will have to plot a course through Texas. But he will never make it all the way through here, the 800-mile stretch from Laredo to nearly El Paso. There will be no “concrete structure from sea to sea,” as the president once pledged. Taking this land would constitute an assault on private property and require a veritable army of lawyers, who, I can assure you, are no match for the state’s powerful border barons...

Yet dozens of cases are still tied up in court, and settlements have been wildly unequal: A retired schoolteacher got $21,500 for two acres; a lawyer and banker who hired one of the state’s biggest law firms got nearly $5 million for just six acres.The cost has been staggering. The most recent 33 miles in the valley have set back taxpayers $641 million, or $19.4 million a mile, for a hodgepodge of fences, vehicle barriers, and some bollard fencing—with lots of gaps...

As messy as land seizure has been in the valley, it would be even messier upriver... on the drive to Laredo, tiny plots give way to expansive ranches controlled by richer landowners—with more power to oppose eminent domain. I know this place. I’m a Texan who grew up a border rat...

So I can say this, generally speaking: Although many big ranchers and landowners backed Trump, they are conservative in the most traditional senses. They actually believe in small government, free enterprise, free trade, and private property. And nobody puts a wall through their brush...

“The general sentiment—to a person—is that everybody is in favor of additional border security,” said LaMantia. But seizing land through eminent domain? “That is diametrically opposed by everybody, from Zapata to Del Rio.”..

These landowners may be few, but they’re powerful. Campaign contributions can dry up.  “Those with influence and power have the ability to hire big lawyers.”.. The region’s border barons also have the people of their state behind them: Texans have consistently opposed the wall in polls...

Although the courts have upheld eminent domain under the Secure Fence Act, a national-security declaration is another matter. The border barons would have standing in court to challenge a declaration—they would be directly affected—and they would have reason on their side. After all, apprehensions of undocumented immigrants are down from 1.6 million in 2000 to 300,000 in 2017. There is no disorder in the streets. Crime in every border city is down. Way down. Among the lowest in the nation...

Here is the final, insurmountable barrier to Trump’s wall here: money. The government has already paid nearly $1 million an acre for that six-acre plot in the Rio Grande Valley, potentially setting a precedent. If the Trump administration seized 700 miles of private land along the border, one mile wide—640 acres per square mile—the tab could come to $448 billion. Nearly 20 times the wall itself.

Much more at the link.