Homeland Security Won't Explain Why the Mexican Border Wall Bypasses the Rich and Connected

By Melissa del Bosque , Texas Observer
Posted on February 19, 2008, Printed on February 19, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/77320/

As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security marches down the Texas border serving condemnation lawsuits to frightened landowners, Brownsville resident Eloisa Tamez, 72, has one simple question. She would like to know why her land is being targeted for destruction by a border wall, while a nearby golf course and resort remain untouched.

Tamez, a nursing director at the University of Texas at Brownsville, is one of the last of the Spanish land grant heirs in Cameron County. Her ancestors once owned 12,000 acres. In the 1930s, the federal government took more than half of her inherited land, without paying a cent, to build flood levees.