Our colleague Dwight Merriam was recently interviewed on the radio about issues surrounding the existing and proposed wall and fence along portions of the southern border.
If you want to get educated on this issue, here's the quick way to do it.
Dwight discusses funding, emergency powers, the Declaration of Taking Act, and other topics. You may not be practicing where border wall issues are among your cases. But trust us: even so, if you tell people you are an eminent domain lawyer at a cocktail party, the first thing someone is going to ask is what your thoughts are on the border wall. Doesn't matter if you are in a state far from the border. And if you aren't familiar with the border wall issues and able to chat about them, they will conclude you are a bad eminent domain lawyer. So get educated! Here's your chance.
Dwight has also published an op-ed on the subject: "Emergency declaration to blow up Trump's wall."
We posted on this a while back ("Eminent Domain and the Border Fence"), and we provided some thoughts for the big Pro Publica story on the border wall last year ("'Abuse, Mistakes and Unfairness' In Border Wall Eminent Domain (But It's Not Just Happening There)"). You may want to check those out, also.
