Donald Trump Immigration Reform News 2017: Border Wall to Leave Some US Residents on the 'Mexican Side'
President Donald Trump's proposed Mexican wall is seen to leave a good number of U.S. residents who live near the border trapped on the "Mexican side." The wall, whose source of funding remains unclear up to this time, will be built on the U.S.-Mexican border as part of Trump's immigration reform program.
NBC News noted that some of the residents in the Rio Grande Valley reside on the northern side of the river that separates the two countries, but south of the proposed location of the wall. One town in that area, Brownsville, already has 18-foot fencing through its neighborhood. Considering their current state, the construction of a full-scale Mexican border wall is deemed even more disruptive.
Building the said fencing alone already forced the U.S. government to take several homeowners to court in domain cases despite the fact that it can be easily scaled in seconds by those who want to cross the border illegally.
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An 88-year-old homeowner near the location of the proposed wall, Pamela Taylor, recently told NBC that the U.S. government would penalize people who live along the river on the American side if it insists on constructing the wall. "How would we get out?" she said.
Taylor said the wall is threatening to seal some U.S. residents on the Mexican side, which means they will be placed technically on U.S. soil but outside a barrier built north of the river to separate the two countries. The wall, she said, would cause landowners to lose their properties.
Residents near the border who have lost their properties because of the existing fence are now gearing up for a new battle against the U.S. government.
Right now, Trump is still securing funding from Congress for the proposed wall, which is expected to cost around $21.6 billion. The Department of Homeland Security is also helping Trump fulfill his campaign promise of a hard-line immigration crackdown through expediting more police forces who will act as deputized immigration enforcers.
