Texas moves close to ban on some land sales to foreigners

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After some last-minute negotiations, the Texas Legislature has passed a bill that aims to ban people tied to the governments of China, North Korea, Russia and Iran from purchasing land in the state. The bill now goes to the governor, who has already expressed his support.

Senate Bill 17 passed despite a federal court ruling that a similar law in Florida was likely beyond the state’s authority. It’s the second attempt by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, who said in 2023 that the right time to address concerns over foreign entities owning Texas land is before it becomes widespread — something she sees as a way to bolster national security.

The latest data available shows that investors from the four countries own a small portion of farmland in Texas and nationally. Chinese investors own about 383,000 total acres of U.S. farmland — about 600 square miles — which is less than 1% of total, foreign-held acreage, according to the United States Department of Agriculture’s 2021 land report.

"I believe that, from the very bottom of my heart, we are protecting our land and our minerals," Kolkhorst said at a news conference Friday. "All of these are our resources that should never fall into the hands of adversarial nations."

Rep. Cole Hefner, a Republican from Mt. Pleasant who carried the bill in the House, said at the news conference: "Senate Bill 17 will counter this threat and make Texas a leader in state security. We cannot, we will not, allow oppressive regimes who actively seek to do harm to cease control and dictate their terms over our economy, our supply chains, our daily lives, our critical infrastructure for our food supply."

The state Senate passed the negotiated version of the bill Friday, 25-6, two days before the deadline. The House approved it on Thursday, 85-57. Last session, although the Senate passed a similar measure, the House failed to take it up.

The bill preserves the last-minute amendments passed by the House: giving the governor the authority to add more countries to the list, restricting leaseholders from renting for one year at a time, and including language that barred people who were part of a ruling political party from buying land.

The bill requires that the person have permission to live in the U.S. legally, but also that the property would serve as a primary residence. Those in the United States on work or student visas are also barred from buying a controlling interest in land as a business investment.

“The metric by which we decide who can and cannot be buying land here is to help the asylum seeker, but not to allow someone that just happens to be here on a tourist visa or a student visa to buy multiple properties, investment properties and everything else,” Kolkhorst said on the Senate floor in May.

Asian Texans for Justice, an advocacy group that opposes the effort, said they see the bill as racist and discriminatory. The group has said the bill revives “a shameful chapter in American history — when Asian immigrants were banned from owning land.”

Lily Trieu, executive director of the group, said that by passing the bill, lawmakers were setting up Texans to have their taxpayer dollars spent on inevitable lawsuits.

“The Florida bill is caught up in the courts. So why would you model a bill after one that's being challenged legally?” she said in an interview. “Why wouldn't you file a bill that you know is legally sound and constitutional?

The bill does not say what would prompt an investigation, but gives the attorney general the authority to come up with a system. It also lays out the process by which land could be reclaimed if someone were found to have violated the law.

Texas and Florida are not alone in their attempts to pass such legislation: between January 2023 and July 2024, at least 22 other states initiated similar bills, according to the federal Congressional Research Service.

Florida’s law, which also includes Cuba, Syria, and Venezuela, was struck down by a U.S. District Court in 2023, but the law remains in effect while the state is appealing it.

In a 2023 letter to the court, the U.S. Department of Justice said the law violates the federal Fair Housing Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution: “These unlawful provisions will cause serious harm to people simply because of their national origin, contravene federal civil rights laws, undermine constitutional rights, and will not advance the State’s purported goal of increasing public safety,” the Department of Justice wrote.

The Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union raised similar concerns.

"Discriminating against residents based on their national origin is not only barred by the Constitution's requirements for due process and equal protection, but it also tramples on the United States' prerogatives on foreign relations," said David Donatti, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas.

Sarah Cruz, a policy and advocacy strategist with the ACLU, said the policy could also lead to racial profiling.

“How is it going to look in practice?,” she said. “If an individual who just simply looks like they may be from one of those designated countries, does that open them to … some additional scrutiny?"

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