Years after he first promised to put up a wall along the southern U.S. border and make Mexico pay for it, President Donald Trump is still pushing for that wall at every opportunity. Although he claimed at a recent rally that wall construction is proceeding faster than those in attendance might have thought possible, in reality, not a single entirely new mile of wall has so far been put up. It’s all been replacing previous barriers. In recent days, one of the many ranchers who own land where Trump wants to put actually new wall spoke out, insisting he is “very upset” about the possibility that the Trump team will soon be taking over some of his land.
David Acevedo’s family has owned land along the southern U.S. border for over a century or so, and he explained to MSNBC:
‘We got a phone call from the Border Patrol to attend a meeting in their south station heading out to our property. And I felt it was a little enclosed — it was 20 owners that probably showed up to this meeting that they invited. I actually communicated with other neighbors of mine to go on out to the meeting because there was going to be a meeting discussing the border wall. And it was my surprise that whoever was on that list was allowed into the meeting, and no media was allowed in. And none of the neighbors were allowed in, only the people that they called which was about a group of 20.’
‘I’m very upset’: Furious Texas rancher tells me @msnbc, Trump is ‘secretly’ trying to steal land to build ‘the wall’ https://t.co/hh3OAgpDHM
— kendis (@kendisgibson) November 17, 2019
Acevedo went on to explain that officials had explained that up to 20 percent of his own 180 acres of property could be affected by the border wall, which works out to the government suggesting they might swipe 36 acres of property just from this one family.
After host Kendis Gibson asked Acevedo if his family was “okay with” the government’s plan, the rancher explained:
‘No, I’m very upset. I don’t know what’s with all the secrecy to this stuff that’s going on. I wish people could come out and take a look at our place. You know, it is a beautiful place. The scenery is great. Recreation is great. There is plenty of wildlife. You know, we’ve been farming and growing hay for cattle production for many, many years now and I don’t see how they can just come over here and say hey, we want to go over there and build a wall there.’
The apparent government intention to take over these large swaths of land across the southern U.S. border culminates the reveal that Trump isn’t actually getting Mexico to pay for the wall in any way, shape, or form, which those outside his base have known essentially since the beginning. He’s hoping that Americans foot the bill for the wall.
To that end, he’s already swiped billions of dollars from military construction funding that otherwise would have gone to projects like constructing new educational facilities for kids at a Kentucky base using a dilapidated school. Now, instead of that project being at the top of the agenda, we’ve just got Trump’s wall.
