(The Center Square) – A state senator from Brenham has again filed a bill to prevent foreign adversaries from purchasing land in Texas.
The “Stopping Foreign Adversaries’ Land Grabs,” SB 17, was filed by state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, and state Sen. Brent Hagenbuch, R-Denton. It would prohibit certain foreign entities from purchasing private property in Texas as a matter of national security. The bill, a legislative priority of Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, has multiple cosponsors.
According to a bill one-pager, it would prohibit the purchase of certain private property by government entities, companies, and individuals from hostile countries and their actors named in the three most recent Annual Threat Assessment reports prepared by the director of National Intelligence. It would ban private property ownership by entities, not foreign business investments in Texas. It doesn’t name any particular country but relies on a DNI designation. The bill also doesn’t apply to U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, including dual citizens.
“The goal of the bill is to legislate common sense safeguards and against the regimes identified as threats” by a DNI designation, the senators explain.
The bill includes several clarifications related to real estate, specifies control of an entity, clarifies enforcement mechanisms and gives authority to the Texas Attorney General to investigate potential violations. It also ensures that innocent actors, including lien holders, lenders and real estate professionals aren’t held accountable for prohibited entity actions.
“Texans have raised concerns about national security ranging from energy security to food security,” Kolkhorst and Hagenbuch said. “Preventing private property rights from being controlled by entities from an adversarial nation is key to ensuring national security.”
Kolkhorst filed a similar bill in 2023, which passed the Texas Senate with bipartisan support. It was killed in the Texas House by Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi. Hunter, who chaired the House State Affairs Committee, never scheduled it for a hearing, ensuring its failure, The Center Square reported.
Abbott, who supported Kolkhorst’s bill two years ago, said, “We must get this to my desk this session.”
Kolkhorst filed the bill in the last legislative session after the Texas Legislature unanimously passed the Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act, banning all contracts or agreements with foreign-owned companies related to critical infrastructure in Texas. Abbott signed it into law in 2021.
The Legislature acted after a Chinese billionaire and former Chinese People’s Liberation Army general bought over 130,000 acres of land just miles from Laughlin Air Force base in Val Verde County, the largest air force pilot training base in the U.S.
After Hunter killed Kolkhorst’s bill, The Center Square exclusively reported that an aggressive and coordinated effort launched in Texas to oppose it using a social media platform with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
An unclassified U.S. Air Force report first obtained by The Center Square from a military source, entitled, “The China Threat,” details how the CCP uses WeChat to engage in “information warfare” against Americans, “whose content is thoroughly regulated by the CCP.”
After the bill was killed in the House, in 2024, former House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, created a House Select Committee on Securing Texas from Hostile Foreign Organizations tasking members with identifying potential threats to the state’s economy and security, and to make policy recommendations, The Center Square reported.
Also this year, state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, filed HB 2536 “to protect TX land and our critical infrastructure from foreign adversaries.” The bill “prohibits foreign enemies from acquiring property” in Texas by also empowering the governor to designate additional adversarial nations “to adapt to a shifting geopolitical landscape” and grants the attorney general enforcement authority.
State Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, also filed HB 191 to prohibit certain foreign entities from purchasing property in Texas, also citing a DNI designation.
Spiller also filed HB 243, which authorizes the attorney general “to acquire by eminent domain certain real property owned by aliens or foreign entities.” The bill applies to critical infrastructure, which includes numerous categories like chemical, commercial facilities, critical manufacturing, defense industrial bases, energy, financial services, food and agriculture, government facilities, health care and public health, information technology, nuclear reactors, transportation systems, water systems, among others.
With a new House Speaker this year, and Abbott identifying protecting Texans from foreign adversary infiltration as a legislative priority, such a bill could pass and become law.
Currently no state or federal law includes such prohibitions. The only federal law that addresses foreign investment in U.S. lands is the Agriculture Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978. It only regulates the self-reported data of foreign investment.
