Kristi Noem may be gone from the Trump administration, but her handiwork lives on in a burst of orders that could strip land from property owners along the southern border.
The Trump administration is aggressively pushing landowners in west Texas to cooperate with border wall construction, and representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers delivered an ultimatum at a rare in-person meeting: Work with the government or face seizure of property through eminent domain, reported Axios.
"If the administration has a plan, and we try to coordinate with a landowner and the landowner doesn't respond to us, that's a message [that] you don't agree," said real estate agent Marvin Makarwich, escorted by a Customs and Border Protection agent. "But you're also not having communications to try to figure out if there's a way to do something different."
The administration's aggressive timeline is driving the confrontational approach, and local residents report the goal is to complete construction by December 2027.
Since January, the Army Corps of Engineers has mailed packets offering landowners between $1,000 and $5,000 for initial access, though some contain inaccurate survey lines and owner information. All three options presented to landowners ultimately result in CBP obtaining land for construction through varying degrees of cooperation or eminent domain.
Noem signed 28 environmental and cultural preservation waivers to accelerate the project, citing Trump's executive order declaring an invasion at the southern border, and Axios reported that her "rushed and sloppy work" is "infuriating local residents, ranchers and the tourism industry."
Construction companies are establishing "man camps" and renting RV parks to house hundreds of workers, with June start dates coinciding with rainy season and flash flooding risk.
Landowners are resisting the pressure. Jim Stephens, who owns two plots in Ruidosa, Texas, said $5,000 would help financially but refused to sign away property access rights. "I've seen how government staging areas look after they leave," he said, rejecting a contractor's request for staging access.
Others face more severe consequences. One landowner noted the wall would separate her uncle's home on the Mexican side from the family cemetery on the American side, cutting cattle off from river banks, and she worried a gate-and-key arrangement would make her "a target of the cartels."
Administration officials told Congress last week that nearly 69 new miles of wall and water barriers have been constructed out of approximately 2,000 planned miles.