and found legal battles that dragged on for years. homeowners who described heartache. drew griffin tonight reports. reporter: their lives were cut in half the last time the u.s. government decided it wanted to build a wall. ray and deanne couldn t believe it. they had been farming the south texas land for nearly 100 years until the notice came the government was taking it. i was very angry. i just kept saying, how can they do that? how is that possible in the united states that they can do this? put up a fence in front of our land and then keep us in here. lock us in. i didn t understand. i was very i was floored and flabbergasted. reporter: that was almost ten years ago. they thought they could fight. they lost. the government paid them a settlement and took the land it needed to build this fence. cutting their farm in two. it left us no property on the
tomorrow to submit bids for the first step of president trump s campaign promise building prototypes of a wall along the mexico border. this much is certain, hundreds if not thousands of u.s. citizens will have to give up their private land to build the border wall. we know this because it s happened already. cnn investigated lawsuits filed the last time the government started building on the border and found legal battles that dragged on for years. homeowners who described heartache because they never got what they felt they deserved. drew griffin tonight reports. reporter: their lives were cut in half the last time the u.s. government decided it wanted to build a wall. ray and deanne couldn t believe it. they re family had been farming this south texas land for nearly 100 years until the notice came the government was taking it. i was very angry. i just kept saying, how can they do that? how is that possible in the united states that they can do this? put up a fence in front of o