Many of the residences in Marha's Vineyard are only used as vacation homes by people including Obama, Larry David, Alan Dershowitz and many others. The places would make great places for undocumenteds to stay, until they can get on their feet. Isn't this one of the reasons eminent domain exists? To help our most vulnerable (among other things). It would give them the dignity every human deserves.

i thought that was the role of the churches as well but seem in the south it isnt so.

Not safe for children to be anywhere near Dersh’s house.

This sound like some sort of gotcha right wing meme. Using eminent domain to address a short term problem doesn't make much sense. And if the government takes by property by eminent domain, it has to pay the property owner fair value, so it isn't a good solution from the perspective of the government either.

I thought it was a trick for "both sides"...

Private property rights vs sticking it to libs

better use would be to just take mar-a-lago. trump already took the first steps by trying to dub it the winter whitehouse or whatever. why ship them to an island when you have a hotel already in florida.

Florida is not a sanctuary State. The undocumenteds might get deported.

It’s a long term problem. Tons of undocumenteds in non-sanctuary cities.

Kennedys have a lot of property in Cape Cod. The undocumenteds could even get jobs keeping up the property,

I think building shelters would be way more expensive and less dignified.

I guess i was right about the origin of this "idea".

Why am I supposed to care about Obama’ summer house?

How about we just build more housing since there's a housing shortage anyway. Kill two birds with one stone.

Because we need housing now.

You think eminent domain gets you a house you can use tomorrow?

That's a damn good idea. What we are actually building seems to be McMansions, which isn't super helpful. If it was up to me we would build boatloads of lower-cost apartments and mobile home parks. One of the problems is most cities don't like those, especially the latter. This subject should probably have its own thread.

For sure. I hear that bridge at Chappaquiddick isn't sure safe either.

OK, Boomer

I had one eminent domain issue a couple decades back over a piece of land I owned within a small investment group. This development area had some issues and the market for the land fell badly.

When things had to be re-organized, our land was one of a few lots that got scooped up under eminent domain and not only did we get the highest price any lot was going for at that time but they went back many months (prior to the problems) and gave us a price that almost matched those highs. It was a gift to us as the market currently was no where near that high, but if they forced us to sell at the lows, when we might have said we wanted to hang in there for the bounce back, we likely would have won in court.

So as Rococo already pointed out, it would be foolish to start using eminent domain in an area of already over prices real estate. You would be housing the minimum number of people for the bang for your buck.

If society really wanted to take a flier with regards to this migration issue here is what I would offer instead.


Instead what the US should consider is giving the migrants an offer of free land in any number of these growing ghost towns across the US.

Not forced relocation but an offer, they can refuse, but if a critical mass of people say yes, then they are all relocated to the ghost town with some serious service help provided, and with maybe a State and Federal tax holiday to give them a chance to build and succeed. Make sure you get a mix of people who know how to do things (farm, build, entrepreneurs, etc) and see what happens.

I would put my money on those migrant communities re-invigorating those ghost towns into something substantial over time. the ability to start with free land, is a huge motivator. I am talking about another 'Land Rush' where areas of economic depression and waste (ghost towns) are given to willing migrants who feel they have the right mix to make something of them.

I think a modern day trail of tears is in order

Seems like it would be very hard to do. I suspect that ghost towns tend to be ghost towns because there are no jobs.

Counter proposal: Restrict home ownership to one primary property, force the sale of all non-primary properties, and if they can't sell, then the government buys and lists the property at fair market price (adjusted down due to the glut of new housing.)

I also think it would be better for everyone, immigrants and citizens, if new arrivals were given housing in existing mixed communities and not segregated in their own enclaves.

Give the owners a fee weeks to get their stuff out.

There almost certainly would be a massive amount of takings clause litigation arising from what you are proposing. To state the obvious, your average person who is housing insecure isn't going to be able to pay fair value for some luxury property in the Hamptons, and the people who could afford it aren't going to buy it because then, you know, they would be owning two homes in violation of the law.

So the government would end up with an inventory of close to 10 million second homes, with no way to sell them for anything close to what they would have to pay on the takings clause claims. I wouldn't be surprised if your plan cost the government $5 trillion.

Good luck trying to build a house in Martha’s Vineyard!