Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has introduced a new piece of legislation that prohibits foreign adversaries from buying homes in the United States. The bill would place a ban on foreign adversaries, which is defined as nationals from foreign countries of concern, from buying American homes. Roy’s bill also requires divestment within two years of the law’s adoption, which means that all housing stock needs to be sold to a U.S. citizen.
“American homes belong to American families — not the Chinese Communist Party, foreign Islamists, or our geopolitical foes,” Roy went on to tell the Daily Caller. “While Americans struggle to afford housing, hostile regimes are buying up our land and neighborhoods.” He added, “This bill slams the door on foreign adversaries owning American housing and forces them to sell what they already control.”
“We’re putting America’s homes back in American hands,” Roy said. By the conclusion of 2024, foreign ownership of homes in America topped out at close to 46 million acres of land and over $86 billion in value, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). If Roy’s bill is passed into law, up to 338,000 acres of the land currently owned by foreign adversaries could be eligible for divestiture, equaling $1.1 billion in property.
According to the Daily Caller, Roy’s home state of Texas has one of the highest rates of foreign ownership in the country, with well over 5.6 million acres of land owned by non-Americans. Should the legislation pass, it would mean land in 20 Texas counties totaling up to 124,000 acres might also be eligible for divestiture. Roy and other congressional Republicans have brought up the issue of foreign land ownership plenty of times in the past, especially as it concerns ownership by the Chinese Communist Party.
“In Texas, there is a 342-acre development zoned for residential and commercial use, 70% of which is reportedly owned by CCP investors. Another Texas property linked to Chinese ownership covers over 123,000 acres of land across 15 counties, totaling an estimated $900 million in value, according to the USDA,” the report explained.
In 2023, twelve GOP-led states became part of an amicus brief in support of the state of Florida, which was being sued in a federal court over a law that placed a ban on Chinese citizens from owning land in the Sunshine State, according to another article from The Daily Caller. “Real property law has always been the domain of states,” the amicus brief read.
“And it is unexceptional that the people of a state get to decide how the land within their state is going to be used. Florida’s limitations on unfriendly foreign governments and their actors are not unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful,” it added. The states who joined the brief included Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah.
"*" indicates required fields
Patrick Toomey, the Deputy Director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, spoke with the Daily Caller about the law, saying, “The law targets immigrants from China and other countries, putting huge parts of the state off-limits to people who simply want to buy a home. We are already seeing the devastating effects for homebuyers and real estate businesses, and we look forward to being in court next week to explain why this unconstitutional law must be halted.”