Trump can’t build a border wall without the real estate

President Trump stands behind his campaign promise to build a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexican border. On the campaign trail, he insisted he could get the job done for no more than $10 billion because he is the master of completing construction projects quickly and under budget. This past weekend the president took to Twitter to lash out at reports that the true cost of the border wall would be well north of $10 billion.

The critics are almost certainly correct. Mr. Trump fails to take into account the major hurdle the wall faces: eminent domain.

To build the wall, the U.S. would need to own all 1,954 miles of the border. Most of this land is now private property—especially in Texas, where the U.S. government owns only 100 miles of the 1,254-mile border. To acquire the rest of the land it would need, Washington would need to employ eminent domain, the authority under the Fifth Amendment to seize private property for public use upon payment of “just compensation.”