Judge Hanen says government can condemn land for that d*mn fence!

After a one-month deliberation, U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen has issued the most significant decision in the border fence’s short judicial history. In a case against Eloisa Tamez, who owns property along the barrier’s proposed path in El Calaboz, Hanen found that the federal government is authorized by the Declaration of Taking Act to condemn Tamez’s land. But according to the ruling, negotiations must take place between the landowner and the Department of Homeland Security before property is seized.

Immediately after the decision was filed on Tamez’s case, 25 previously pending cases — pertaining to land in Cameron Hidalgo and Starr Counties — were scheduled in Hanen’s Brownsville court on March 17 and 19, making him a critical actor in the border fence’s construction. Among the defendants in the next batch of cases are the Texas Southmost College District and the Rio Grande City Consolidated Independent School District.

Hanen, as you might remember, asked for common sense while Eagle Pass judge, Alia Moses Ludlum, let the government act in secret to take land.

Negotiations with the land owner must happen first.

A federal judge has ruled that the government must first try to negotiate a price with a South Texas landowner before seizing her property for the border fence.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen late Friday came a month after federal prosecutors argued that immediate access to property was necessary to getting 370 miles of fencing built by December.

They're racing to build the fence because this is an election year and the Republicans have nothing else to show their racist base.