For an interesting article about the takings of land for the controversial border fence separating the US from Mexico, check out an article by Pro Publica, entitled THE TAKING. You can find it at:
https://features.propublica.org/eminent-domain-and-the-wall/the-taking-texas-government-property-seizure/
This article is a tad on the long side for an on-line piece, but it is not lawyer stuff; it is written for the intelligent layman in clear English and provides a lot of information about the law of eminent domain, and about the dark side of government practices in land acquisition. Not a pretty story, but it provides ample support for Lewis Orgel’s observation in his treatise “Valuation Under Eminent Domain” (1953) that eminent domain is “the dark corner of the law.” That it is.
This article, by the way, harks back to the 1960s — 1970s era of law journal articles that were critical of government land acquisition practices and that revealed abuses of condemnees’ rights and exposed the prevalent undercompensation of condemnees. Some of these abuses were rectified by courts and legislatures, but only some. The law of eminent domain remains basically biased against condemnees, and the US Supreme Court, as well as the California Supreme Court have explicitly conceded that the constitutionally mandated “just compensation” provided for in the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause is actually undercompensation. See for example Gideon Kanner, “Fairness and Justice,” or Judicial Bait-and-Switch? 4 Albany Law Review 38 (2011).
Reading this Pro Publica article will be well worth your while if you have any interest in eminent domain.