Another Brick in the Wall
July 31st, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Daniel Garza, 74, didn’t have the resources to take Homeland Security to court over construction of the border wall (unlike the University of Brownsville). No sooner had Hurricane Dolly blown through, then the heavy machinery began cutting into the earthen levee behind his home last Friday.
This is part of the 22-mile levee/fence project that Hidalgo County Judge JD Salinas was able to negotiate with Homeland Security. Currently 13-foot steel poles are being driven into the earthen levee and will be reinforced with concrete.
The levee sits about 50 feet behind Garza’s home. The Observer wrote about Garza’a predicament in our story “Holes in the Wall” published in February. Initially, his home and his son’s home were slated for destruction to make way the border fence. Garza was even more upset to find that the fence stopped at the edge of his property line but didn’t cross into land owned by Dallas billionaire Ray L. Hunt.
Judge Salinas negotiated a deal that would save Garza’s home…for now. But Garza isn’t confident that his property is safe, says his niece Gloria Garza. And who could blame him?
“He is extremely depressed,” she says. “Right now they are not taking his land for an easement, but then you can never be sure about the future.”
Garza said they are also extremely concerned about digging up the levee during the height of hurricane season. ‘We just had one hurricane come through and they didn’t even wait for the soil to dry out,” she says.
When I visited his home in February, Mr. Garza told me sadly “Money talks, and we don’t have it.”
