Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed into law a contentious bill that prohibits citizens and entities from China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia from buying properties. The law comes into force on September 1 and will exempt US citizens and green card holders, with visa holders being allowed to buy properties only for primary residency.
Originally presented in 2022, the bill Senate Bill 17 elicited criticism and was altered to include some exemptions. Its sponsor, Republican State Senator Lois Kolkhorst, states the bill will protect key assets like land, water, and natural resources from possible foreign control.
The law is justified by its proponents to restrict real estate purchases by nations considered to be adversarial, led by China, which reportedly owns approximately 123,708 acres of land in Texas the biggest portfolio in the US states. A 2023 report by the USDA discovered that entities owned by China owned less than 1% of all foreign-owned US land.
But the law has come under intense criticism from Democratic lawmakers and Asian-American advocacy groups as discriminatory and xenophobic. The policy can result in racial profiling and housing discrimination of Asian Americans, the critics say. “Asian Americans could be unfairly denied housing based on appearance,” said Bethany Li of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Civil rights activists are lining up to sue the law in court, following in the footsteps of a similar court battle in Florida, where a federal appeals court has just granted relief to plaintiffs in a suit against a similar law. The US Department of Justice has complained that such laws infringe on constitutional protections.
More than a dozen US states are currently weighing such bills. Meanwhile, federal lawmakers are also working to impose such restrictions across the country, citing national security threats associated with prospective espionage or military threats.
