How a Local Bureaucrat Made Millions Amid the Rush to Build a Border Fence
The feds faced a deadline to finish the first version of a border wall. Godfrey Garza Jr. of Hildalgo County, Texas, made it happen, and made himself a small fortune along the way. Other than Garza, no one seems too happy about that.
by Kiah Collier and Julián Aguilar, Texas Tribune, and T. Christian Miller, ProPublica. Illustrations by Susie Cagle, special to ProPublica
December 29, 2017
This story was co-published with the Texas Tribune.
EDINBURG, TEXAS — A decade ago, Congress gave officials at the Department of Homeland Security a year to build 60 miles of fence in the Rio Grande Valley to protect the Texas-Mexico border.
They faced determined resistance. Political leaders denounced the border fence as wasteful and ineffective. Landowners refused to sell their property for its construction. Environmentalists argued it would slice up habitat for endangered species in one of the most biodiverse regions in the country.
The officials found a savior in a politically savvy bureaucrat named Godfrey Garza Jr.
A shrewd county insider, Garza ran an obscure agency that had plans to repair 22 miles of crumbling dirt levees running along the Rio Grande, the riverine border between Texas and Mexico. Garza helped negotiate a deal: If Homeland Security would pay to fix the levees, the feds could build their fence on top of them.
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https://features.propublica.org/eminent-domain-and-the-wall/eminent-domain-border-wall-godfrey-garza-hidalgo-texas
