Texas, USA - Recent (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Border patrol vehicle crossing border
2. Various of La Lomita chapel
3. Roy Snipes, priest at Lomita Chapel, talking to local residents
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Roy Snipes, priest, La Lomita Chapel:
"The wall would be there and go along that levee. That's where our old donkeys and our old llama, the camel are buried there."
5. Snipes with dogs outside chapel
6. Wall inside chapel
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Roy Snipes, priest, La Lomita Chapel:
"We have to say this is crazy of putting a wall between us and a chapel. You've got billions of dollars. You can do anything. Don't do that."
8. Houses, street
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Ruben Villareal, former mayor, Rio Grande City (starting with shot 8):
"We're entitled to rights as property owners. So here you have the federal government taking people's property for a questionable technology that's going to cost billions of dollars that may or may not secure the border."
10. Reporter talking to homeowner Nayda Alvarez
11. Words reading (English) "No Border Wall" on roof of Alvarez's house
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Nayda Alvarez, school teacher (with reporter asking question):
"They come in and say the only thing we can discuss is the price-- a price, really? And they start at a hundred dollars."
(Reporter: "A hundred dollars?")
"A hundred dollars. You think, that won't even pay the movers. Think I'm going to go build somewhere else with a hundred dollars?"
(Reporter: "For the entire property, 100 dollars?")
"That's where they start off with. If you look at the paperwork, it says nominal. They use the word nominal. So they don't care. They just want us out of here."
13. National Butterfly Center
14. Various of butterflies
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Marianna Trevino-Wright, executive director, National Butterfly Center:
"July 20, 2017, I found contractors on our property cutting down trees, mowing down brush, and widening a road, and they were not supposed to be here. They had no authority to be here."
16. Levee road where border wall would be built
17. Stakes marking where border wall would be built
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Marianna Trevino-Wright, executive director, National Butterfly Center (with reporter asking question):
"The wall is going to go down there. The 18 foot vertical concrete slab will go to the height of the existing levee road."
(Reporter: "So they'll back fill this whole thing?"
"They're going to back fill this wedge and turn this two lane road into a six or eight lane road. And then the 18 foot tall steel bollards will rise above the road from the top of that 18 foot concrete wall. They're going to eliminate all of this, all these mature trees."
19. Trevino-Wright walking to river
20. River
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Marianna Trevino-Wright, executive director, National Butterfly Center:
"This is the largest private property grab in the history of modern America, and it is targeting people of color, poor people, those on the border lands, and for what? Can you think of an incident of mass homicide, shootings, terrorism, anything in the last 20 years since 9-11 that have involved people crossing over the southern border? Not one. You know, this is a hateful, racist project."
22. Butterflies
23. SOUNDBITE (English) Marianna Trevino-Wright, executive director, National Butterfly Center:
"To be catastrophic --because we're not just talking about the closure of the National Butterfly Center or Bentson Rio Grande Valley State Park-- we are talking about all of the employees of those places losing their jobs. We're talking about people not flying in, renting cars, staying in the hotels, buying their gear at Academy, eating at the restaurants. I mean, the trickle down is enormous."

Washington D.C, USA - Recent (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
24. Various of U.S. Capitol Building, sign

The U.S. government is moving ahead with plans to seize land to build a border wall with Mexico, but south Texas landowners are not giving up without a fight.

The U.S. government has started giving notice to many homes and businesses in the Rio Grande Valley, telling them that it wants to acquire their land. A law called eminent domain allows them to do it.

It's part of President Donald Trump's promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico. The aim is to keep undocumented immigrants and drug smugglers out of the United States.

But many living along the U.S. side of the border, some for generations, could pay the biggest price.

Landowners who grew-up along the Rio Grande River said they fished in the river, swam in it, and picnicked along its banks. A wall, they say, would end that, completely cutting them off from the Rio Grande.

The little white chapel of La Lomita, adorned with its simple cross, sits tucked away in deep, south Texas near the City of Mission. It is peaceful. La Lomita has a connection, personally and spiritually, to just about everyone in the city, says Father Roy Snipes.

Wearing his Stetson hat, Father Snipes is known, for good reason, as the 'Cowboy Priest.' He is also the face of the movement to keep the chapel out of the shadow of a wall.

"The wall would be there and go along that levee. That's where our old donkeys and our old llama, the camel are buried there," he said.

The little chapel sits about a mile from the Rio Grande River and the border with Mexico. Placing a barrier to stop the flow of undocumented migrants and drug traffickers has been discussed for more than a decade. Only now, it seems more imminent than ever. And if it's built atop the levee, La Lomita Chapel would be cut off from the people who have worshiped there for generations.

"We have to say this is crazy of putting a wall between us and a chapel. You've got billions of dollars. You can do anything. Don't do that," said Father Snipes.

The priest's two dogs Charlotte and Bandito are always close by keeping him company when no one else is there. Inside the chapel, the walls tell the story of age, the adobe cracking and peeling. The chapel could have been built in the 1840s, according to Father Snipes.

La Lomita is not the only place threatened by the possibility or perhaps the probability of a wall. Along the border, hundreds of miles are dotted with homes, businesses, and tracts of land that could be taken by the U.S. government for its wall. Eminent domain gives the government the power to take private land or property. Ruben Villareal is the former mayor of Rio Grande City.

"We're entitled to rights as property owners. So here you have the federal government taking people's property for a questionable technology that's going to cost billions of dollars that may or may not secure the border," he said.

While eminent domain is supposed to require the government to pay a fair price for seized property, Villareal says that isn't happening.

Nayda Alvarez, a school teacher and homeowner in Starr County, says the government is doing just that to her.

"They come in and say the only thing we can discuss is the price-- a price, really? And they start at a hundred dollars. That's where they start off with. If you look at the paperwork, it says nominal. They use the word nominal. So they don't care. They just want us out of here," she said.

The National Butterfly Center sits about two miles from the border with Mexico, where hundreds of species of butterflies and birds make their home. But the wall could cut a huge swath through the sanctuary. About 70 percent of it would be wiped out.

The center's executive director Marianna Trevino-Wright says threatening mail and phone calls are constant because the butterfly center is fighting to keep the wall off its 100 acres of land.

Trevino-Wright said the fight with the government began two years ago.

"July 20, 2017, I found contractors on our property cutting down trees, mowing down brush, and widening a road, and they were not supposed to be here. They had no authority to be here," she said.

Along the side of a levee road, stakes in the ground mark where the wall would go.

"The wall is going to go down there. The 18 foot vertical concrete slab will go to the height of the existing levee road," she said. "They're going to back fill this wedge and turn this two lane road into a six or eight lane road. And then the 18 foot tall steel bollards will rise above the road from the top of that 18 foot concrete wall. They're going to eliminate all of this, all these mature trees," she added.

The National Butterfly Center went to court to stop the seizure of its property. The case was dismissed, but they've filed an appeal. What's happening on the border, as Trevino-Wright says, is a travesty.

"This is the largest private property grab in the history of modern America, and it is targeting people of color, poor people, those on the border lands, and for what? Can you think of an incident of mass homicide, shootings, terrorism, anything in the last 20 years since 9-11 that have involved people crossing over the southern border? Not one. You know, this is a hateful, racist project," she said.

The damage to the center, its magnificent Monarch butterflies that summer there, and the people and businesses could be irreparable, says Trevino-Wright.

"To be catastrophic --because we're not just talking about the closure of the National Butterfly Center or Bentson Rio Grande Valley State Park-- we are talking about all of the employees of those places losing their jobs. We're talking about people not flying in, renting cars, staying in the hotels, buying their gear at Academy, eating at the restaurants. I mean, the trickle down is enormous," she said.

Legal scholars say the power of eminent domain gives the government the upper hand. Over time it may well prevail, but lawsuits by landowners could tie things up in the courts for years.