By CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ CBS NEWS February 17, 2019, 12:48 PM

Hurd says 1,000 Texas farmers could have land seized to build Trump's border wall

Texas Rep. Will Hurd, the sole Republican representing a congressional district along the southern border, said more than 1,000 farmers in his state are at risk of having their land seized by the federal government to facilitate the construction of President Trump's long-promised wall.

"In the great state of Texas, we care about a little thing called private property, and there's going to be over 1,000 ranchers and farmers potentially impacted if the government comes in and takes their land," Hurd said on "Face the Nation" Sunday.

To build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, the Trump administration will likely attempt to seize private property along the frontier using the power of eminent domain, which allows the government to trigger a process to buy and ultimately acquire private land for public use.

"What we're doing with eminent domain is, in many cases, we'll make a deal up front. We've already done that. The secretary has done a lot of that," the president told reporters in January, offering no specifics to support the claim. "And if we can't make a deal, we take the land and we pay them through a court process. Which goes actually fairly quickly. And we're generous. But we take the land. Otherwise you could never build anything. If you didn't use eminent domain, you wouldn't have one highway in this country. You have to use eminent domain."

But Hurd said the strategy will surely be resisted by some landowners and force the government into a prolonged legal battle.

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