Texas Senate passes bill forbidding hostile-country citizens to buy resource-rich lands

The Senate of Texas recently passed a bill to forbid the citizens or subjects of countries deemed hostile to the United States to buy certain resource-rich lands within the State.

Texas land purchase bill

Texas Senate Bill 147 applies this ban to countries named on the Director of National Intelligence’ Threat Assessment in three successive years. This currently applies to China, Iran, North Korea – and Russia. But lawful permanent Texas residents and “dual citizens” do not fall under this prohibition.

The lands subject to the prohibition include farmland, oil-rich land, timber land, and mineral-rich land.

Senate Bill 147 goes to the Texas State House, where it faces considerable opposition. This opposition comes mainly from communities of Chinese residents in or near Houston and other large cities. Charges of racial profiling are rife.

Other States are considering similar legislation. North Carolina’s General Assembly has taken up a bill to forbid citizens or subjects of certain countries to buy farmland. This bill would also forbid such citizens to buy land near a military base. The “black list” of countries in the bill include China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela. In fact the North Carolina State House passed that bill unanimously.

Florida has many such bills under consideration, according to Fox News. And Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced a bill to forbid Chinese citizen/subjects to buy farmland nationwide. To remove the disability, they must be permanent lawful residents or asylees. Senator Cotton, in an interview with Fox Digital, expressed direct concern about the Chinese Communist Party acquiring U.S. farmland and other land near military bases and other sensitive installations. In fact he worries as much about industrial espionage as about conventional “espionage.”

Prospects

Why Texas Chinese residents should feel subject to profiling is not entirely clear. A person of Chinese extraction can still purchase resource-rich lands by taking one of these steps:

• Apply for and receive permanent resident status (a “green card”), or
• Seek naturalization as a citizen of the United States.

Republicans have a near supermajority in the Texas House, so the bill’s prospects for passage are good.