This Land is Your Land

The Incompatibility of Alien Ownership with National Sovereignty

Disregarding the liberal dogmas on multicultural or global societies, it’s fairly straightforward to recognize that citizens, those in a strict and successive national covenant, should be the recipients of privileges not granted to foreigners. We understand this at some levels: foremost would be suffrage in a democratic system, holding political office, sitting on a jury, and arguably anything in the Bill of Rights reserved to “the people” as opposed to the individual. Clearly, there is no argument against the distinctions in theory—everyone from Moses to Plato to Blackstone made them—but these distinctions reach even farther than we typically think. The free citizen, classically, has the right to own land in the empire, a right not often granted to others.

Limit land ownership to citizens of a nation. The principle is intuitive, and some are surprised this isn’t already the case. The United States, as any other nation and perhaps more explicitly so, is a people bound together by heritage and covenant in a particular geographic location, primarily the mainland of North America, North of the Rio Grande and South of the 49th parallel. This land is part of the United States of America and belongs to it. That means it doesn’t belong to anyone else. Why, in fact, would this not be the ordinary view of citizen rights? Why should foreign nationals or noncitizen permanent residents have control over territory belonging to a different nation?

The Mosaic law governing the kingdom of Israel in the Old Testament recognized strict legal differences between Israelites and aliens or strangers among them. Of course, there was judicial equality when it came to criminal actions, but the land itself was divided up and allotted to the twelve tribes, and within those to the clans and families. This land was passed down generation to generation, and though property could be temporarily bought and sold, it was restored to the family every 50 years at the Jubilee. While I don’t want to suggest that this system should be lifted out and dropped into our current situation, there is a common impression that civic faithfulness involves total free market trade and ownership of land. That simply isn’t the case—there is no such rule in Scripture or Old Covenant Law, and never has been. I also don’t want to pretend that the principle argued for here is the only or even the primary lesson from these Old Covenant Laws, but merely to show that this proposition is not new or unbiblical. A more particular treatment of this topic can be found in this excellent article by Ben Crenshaw.

English common law, prior to 1870, barred aliens from owning land apart from the express permission of the King. Blackstone maintained that aliens could not own English property, writing that, “If an alien could acquire a permanent property in lands, he must owe an allegiance, equally permanent with that property, to the king of England; which would probably be inconsistent with that, which he owes to his own natural liege lord: besides that thereby the nation might in time be subject to foreign influence, and feel many other inconveniences.” (Commentaries, Book 1 Ch. 10). The American colonial legislatures did not consistently abide by this, which allowed much more freedom for settlers from various origins, but foreign ownership was hardly a pressing issue until the 20th century, due to its rarity and the abundance of available American land.

Let’s take a look at one interesting and surprisingly relevant event at the conclusion of the War Between the States. In January of 1865, General Sherman issued a field order, approved by the President, that divided a 400,000-acre area of confiscated Confederate territory among freed black slaves who sought protection with the Union army. Although it preceded the 14th Amendment that would grant citizenship to these freedmen, the political correspondence of giving property to and creating citizens of the same people is clear, and made more so by President Andrew Johnson’s subsequent alteration of this action. He reversed this decision for those who would swear loyalty to the United States, restoring their land and removing it from the freed blacks who had acquired it just months earlier.

Ethics of the war aside, Sherman’s order certainly makes political sense, particularly in concert with Johnson’s amnesty proclamation upon oath of loyalty to the United States. Practically speaking, unless the citizens who terminated their membership in the national covenant entered into it again, they could not be truly considered citizens of the United States, but foreigners—members of the dissolved Confederate States—and thus lose all right to property in the Union that God had decided to preserve. It was universally recognized that the right to acquire and possess landed property in a nation was dependent upon loyalty to that nation, upon a bond that tied a man to his people and place.

Where does that put us today? If the land of the United States of America belongs to it and to its people, then it does not belong to foreign nationals, corporations, or countries. Yet we allow all of these to have ownership of American land, subject only to various restrictions put in place for specific places and circumstances. It is difficult to find numbers on this subject, with the best data available for agricultural land through the USDA.

As of 2023, foreign investors owned 47,046 tracts of agricultural land in the United States, evaluated at over $82.6 billion. This is tracked through the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978, under the supervision of the USDA. There appears to be little regulation at a federal level over how much can be held by foreign parties.

This is about 46 million acres of agricultural land, composing 3.6% of the nation’s 1.27 billion acres of privately held agricultural land, and 2.4% of all U.S. Land (1.9 billion acres). Perhaps surprisingly, this land is not primarily controlled by Chinese but by European and Canadian investors. Ranking several countries by greatest share of American land, we find:

• Canada – 15.35 million acres (33.5% of foreign-owned agricultural land)
• The Netherlands – 5.2 million acres
• Italy – 2.7 million acres
• The United Kingdom – 2.6 million acres
• Germany – 2.5 million acres
• China – 350,000 acres (<1% of foreign-owned agricultural land)

The current situation brings with it several dangers: First, land is already expensive and difficult to acquire for American citizens without the competition from foreign investors. Second, it is a national security threat (as Blackstone noted) because control over land by foreign nationals is an excellent cover for dangerous and illegal activity, while American control ensures sovereignty as well as oversight and safety. Third, it creates an unnecessary degree of extra governmental bureaucracy and management while enriching foreign parties at our expense.

Citizenship comes with rights, privileges, and duties. Requiring citizenship to own land is not only reasonable, but obvious. It ensures fundamentally that the country belongs to its people. Temporary workers and immigrants seeking citizenship may rent property belonging to Americans. It would disincentivize much immigration—currently, there might be as many as 10 million non-citizens in the U.S. who own their housing rather than rent. If property ownership apart from complete naturalization is prohibited, the applications would decrease and free up new housing for Americans who are struggling to afford homes.

Wouldn’t this prevent foreign parties from investing in the United States, which in many cases could actually supply jobs for American citizens? On the contrary, two paths are still open for those interested in investing: first, the ability to rent land, structures, or other permanent properties belonging to American citizens, and with their permission to build there. Second, to pursue naturalization through legal avenues, assimilate, and gain the accompanying rights of ownership.

Another objection is how this could be squared with corporate ownership of land. While this could be addressed in more detail on its own, the general principle is uncomplicated. If the company is private, the owner must be an American citizen. If it is public, either a majority of the equity must be held by, or a majority of the shareholders must be, American citizens. Can this be done? Can the international corporations be fought? Well, Arkansas is already trying. In 2023, Arkansas SB383 blocked ownership of agricultural land by foreign countries deemed hostile to the U.S., and it is currently in litigation against a Chinese corporation to divest them of 160,000 acres. There are some in this fight; it’s time to join them.

What can be done to restore America to its citizens and end alien possession of land? Here are some proposals that I think we should contemplate:

• Immediate pause on all new acquisitions of land by foreign investors.
• Ten-year divestment plan, with options to sell to private American investors or to the State or Federal governments.
• Compensated divestment by USDA, to be either auctioned or sold to American investors.
• Alternatively, abolition of property taxes for American citizens and raised property taxes for foreign property owners. This disincentivizes foreign acquisition and makes it easier for Americans to acquire the property.
• Other financial incentives/disincentives toward foreign ownership.
• Similar policies for foreign-owned residential, industrial, and commercial property.

Operating with the assumption of a nationalist framework, there is no real objection to this concept that can’t be overcome with a common law scriptural view of national covenants. The benefits are many and obvious, and the risks none, unless it be the temporary difficulty of undertaking the restoration. Hear the decree: America is for Americans.

Excursus

There is a dispute afoot about whether anyone born on American soil qualifies as a citizen under the 14th Amendment’s “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” clause. It’s worth noting that English Common Law at the time of Blackstone took the form that the 14th Amendment has been interpreted to mean for the last century, which Blackstone notes as a difference between English and French law in the same chapter: “The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such. In which the constitution of France differs from ours; for there, by their jus albinatus, if a child be born of foreign parents, it is an alien.” (Book 1, Ch. 10). I won’t lay the arguments out here, but there is a very strong case that the French mode of natural birthright was that which the authors of the 14th Amendment intended. There is a seeming flaw to the Common Law in this regard; the same law affirms that children of subjects born outside of the King’s jurisdiction are still subjects. Reason dictates that this should operate conversely, and that children of foreign subjects born inside the King’s jurisdiction would retain their parents’ allegiance.

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