Texas Ranchers, Counties Sue Feds Over BLM Land Grab

Private landowners get help from counties in attempt to stave off federal takeover

Multiple ranchers, a sheriff and several Texas counties are suing the federal government for unconstitutionally attempting to seize thousands of acres of private property along the Red River.

Claiming the US Bureau of Land Management is violating citizens’ Fourth and Fifth Amendments and “infringing upon the sovereignty of local county governments,” a lawsuit filed in US District Court by nine private landowners, including one county sheriff, in addition to Wichita, Clay, and Wilbarger counties, seeks to end the dispute with the feds once and for all.

The lawsuit claims the federal government’s “ownership of property is limited to bottom-half of the sandy riverbed outside of Texas.

“Nonetheless, the BLM asserts that its boundary extends well past the riverbed into Texas and, in some instances, more than a mile outside of its lawful territory.”

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