SB 17 remains a deeply concerning piece of legislation despite recent clarifications and procedural refinements. While it is presented as a national security measure to prevent hostile foreign influence over Texas land, the bill continues to pose significant threats to private property rights, due process, economic freedom, and limited government principles. Though the most recent version provides more defined exemptions and enforcement language, the core problems remain: it relies on a forced divestment model, uses an overbroad definition of who is restricted, and ties state policy to fluctuating federal threat assessments without sufficient legislative oversight.
1. Private Property Rights & Eminent Domain-Like Concerns
SB 17 authorizes the Attorney General to initiate legal proceedings to force the divestment of property owned by individuals or entities found in violation of its restrictions. While not a formal eminent domain, this process still involves the involuntary loss of private property under state authority, raising constitutional and liberty concerns. The bill does not provide for just compensation in the traditional sense. Instead, proceeds are first used to satisfy liens and cover state enforcement costs, with only the remainder returned to the original property holder.
Additionally, the definition of "real property" remains extremely broad, covering agricultural, commercial, residential, mineral, groundwater, and timber rights, thus exposing legitimate landowners, including foreign-born residents or investors not aligned with any foreign government, to the risk of government-forced sale. This undermines foundational property rights that are essential to Texas’s legal and economic system.
2. Enforcement Has Improved—but Still Lacks Safeguards
The bill now includes a structured investigation process: the Attorney General must assess whether an investigation is warranted before taking action and may utilize court-authorized discovery tools. However, forced divestment remains the primary remedy, and no robust criminal enforcement or corporate compliance regime is included for systematic prevention.
The revised bill also reintroduces a criminal penalty only for individuals (not companies), but this is limited to citizens of designated countries acting unlawfully, leaving open potential avenues for circumvention by using proxy owners or shell companies. Without deeper reforms to how ownership structures are scrutinized, bad actors with sophisticated legal strategies will likely find workarounds, while law-abiding individuals and investors may face unintended consequences.
3. Use of “Domiciled” Still Overreaches
The term "domiciled" is now defined in the bill as a person’s true, fixed, and permanent home. While this narrows previous ambiguity, the law still applies to citizens of designated countries who are domiciled abroad (even outside the U.S.) if they have not completed naturalization elsewhere. This could sweep in:
- Refugees and asylum seekers not yet been naturalized,
- Legal visa holders,
- Expats, or
- Individuals fleeing authoritarian regimes who pose no actual risk to Texas.
This raises real liberty concerns: individuals with no operational link to adversarial governments could still be barred from property ownership due to their residency status or incomplete immigration journey.
4. Economic Consequences & Free Enterprise Risks
Texas's economy has thrived on its open and competitive real estate market. SB 17 injects regulatory uncertainty into land transactions involving international parties, even those operating legally. Foreign-owned businesses, particularly in agriculture and energy, could face reduced access to land, creating ripple effects in supply chains, rural development, and investment flows.
By including long-term leaseholds (100+ years) and a wide array of property types under the law’s reach, SB 17 risks chilling investment far beyond its intended national security targets. A better policy would limit restrictions to military-adjacent, critical infrastructure, or high-risk agricultural properties, rather than broadly restricting transactions across the entire Texas real estate market.
5. Government Overreach and Reliance on Federal Designations
SB 17 continues to tie Texas policy to federal intelligence reports, which could fluctuate annually based on shifting geopolitical priorities. This automatic incorporation of federal designations into state law removes legislative deliberation and makes the policy subject to external political forces, not Texas-specific interests. This dynamic also places landowners at risk of becoming non-compliant overnight, based on a federal report over which they—and state lawmakers—have no control.
Moreover, the bill grants substantial, unchecked power to the Attorney General to seize, manage, and sell property with minimal judicial guardrails or legislative oversight. There is no independent review mechanism, nor any requirement to consider due process claims or hardship exceptions for good-faith violators.
Conclusion
While national security is a legitimate concern, SB 17 continues to adopt a blunt, overly broad approach that infringes on private property rights, expands government power, and jeopardizes Texas’s reputation as a beacon of free enterprise and individual liberty. A more narrowly tailored bill—focused on specific high-risk property categories, with targeted ownership disclosure rules and due process protections—could address the same threats more effectively and constitutionally.
As it stands, SB 17 remains an expansive and problematic overreach. Texas Policy Research recommends a NO vote on this bill unless substantially amended to focus more clearly on actual security risks and protect lawful individual and commercial property rights.
- Individual Liberty: The bill restricts individuals, based on their citizenship and domicile in a designated country, from acquiring property in Texas, even if they are lawfully present in the United States. While U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents are exempt, the bill still applies to non-citizens domiciled in restricted countries, individuals lawfully residing abroad but who haven’t completed naturalization in another country, and citizens of other countries acting on behalf of designated nations. This approach poses a due process risk by limiting individual rights based on status and association, rather than behavior or proven threat. It could sweep in refugees, asylum seekers, and long-term visa holders who are attempting to escape the very regimes Texas is seeking to guard against. Although the bill narrows earlier definitions and clarifies exemptions, it still risks penalizing innocent individuals based solely on their origin or residence, not actions.
- Personal Responsibility: A core principle of liberty is that individuals should be held accountable for their own conduct, not judged collectively. The bill applies restrictions categorically, not on a case-by-case basis. While designed to deter property acquisition by adversarial actors, it assumes that all individuals tied to a “designated country” pose a risk, removing individual discretion from the process. The bill does not provide a clear appeals mechanism for someone unjustly restricted, nor a framework to demonstrate good-faith intent or security compliance. As such, it shifts the presumption of legitimacy away from individuals, limiting the opportunity for personal responsibility or lawful redress.
- Free Enterprise: The bill restricts access to Texas’s real estate market—an essential part of its economy—for a broad swath of foreign individuals and companies. By doing so, it undermines Texas’s reputation as a pro-business, pro-investment state. While the bill claims to address national security risks, its sweeping nature affects transactions across all sectors, including agriculture, commercial, residential, energy, and water rights. Although exemptions for short-term leaseholds (under 100 years) help reduce some overreach, the law still creates uncertainty for investors, complicates compliance, and could chill foreign capital inflow. These restrictions discourage not just malicious actors but also legitimate businesses and individuals with no link to foreign adversaries.
- Private Property Rights: The bill directly restricts who can own land in Texas and allows the state, through court action initiated by the Attorney General, to force divestment of property. This creates a system where certain individuals or businesses can have their land taken and sold under state authority, regardless of whether the property was acquired lawfully at the time of purchase. Even though the bill does not operate under formal eminent domain laws, its forced divestiture process parallels state seizure of property, without full due process or a guarantee of just compensation. The inclusion of civil receivership and partial reimbursement procedures still leaves property rights vulnerable to state discretion, which conflicts with a bedrock liberty principle.
- Limited Government: The bill grants expansive enforcement powers to the Texas Attorney General, including investigative authority, civil actions, and the ability to appoint receivers to control or sell private property. It also allows federal intelligence assessments to drive state law by automatically treating countries identified in federal threat reports as restricted. This model outsources legislative discretion and allows for automatic shifts in legal restrictions without further action by the Texas Legislature. In effect, state power is expanded while checks and balances are reduced, undermining the principle that government should be restrained, deliberate, and accountable.
