By Kaitlyn Vance.
In 2022, the former governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, placed shipping containers on federal land in an effort to halt migration across the Arizona–Mexico Border. Similarly, in 2023 Governor Greg Abbott of Texas built a buoy barrier in federal waters to deter migrants from crossing the Rio Grande. Both governors acted contrary to the federal government’s interests, and these events demonstrate the federal–state conflict over property ownership and rights at the United States–Mexico Border. Harold Demsetz’s Toward a Theory of Property Rights serves as a lens to analyze this federal–state conflict at the Border and justifies enacting legislation to clarify federal–state property ownership and rights, impose penalties for violating those rights, and help eliminate federal–state conflict in this area. Full Article.