Border wall could leave some Americans on 'Mexican side'

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The last time U.S. officials built a barrier along the border with Mexico, they left an opening at the small road leading south to Pamela Taylor's home on the banks of the Rio Grande.

Taylor hadn't been told where the fence would be built, and she doesn't know now whether officials are coming back to complete it.

"How would we get out?" asked Taylor, 88, sitting in the living room of the home she built with her husband half a century ago. "Do they realize that they're penalizing people that live along this river on the American side?"

Taylor's experience illustrates some of the effects that the border wall President Donald Trump has imagined could have on residents in the Rio Grande Valley, the sunny expanse of bilingual towns and farmland that form the southernmost point of the U.S.-Mexico border. The wall could seal some Americans on the "Mexican side" — technically on U.S. soil, but outside of a barrier built north of the river separating the two countries. Landowners could lose property, and those that already lost some for the existing fence are already preparing for a new battle.

Even if they don't win, lawyers hope to tie up the wall in court long enough that politics could effectively stop it, either in Congress or after another election.

"That's a fight that we've been ready to fight," said Efren Olivares, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project.

The U.S. government will select finalists to build pieces of wall in San Diego, then choose a company to complete the rest. Ron Vitiello, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that a new barrier will eventually be built in the Rio Grande Valley, where sections of rust-colored poles 18 feet (5.5 meters) high already run through neighborhoods in Brownsville and nearby towns. Vitiello told an audience in San Antonio that the government plans to complete a wall or fence in towns that have long been under consideration.

"There will likely be (barriers) there if all of the plans come together, but I can't tell you where," he said.