A federal appeals court has allowed Texas' new foreign land-ownership law to remain in effect — not because the judges weighed in on whether it's constitutional, but because they ruled the person challenging it isn't actually affected by it.
On Thursday, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's decision to dismiss a lawsuit against Senate Bill 17, a new law that restricts people with citizenship, permanent residence or political ties to China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from acquiring most types of real estate in Texas, including farmland, homes and commercial property.
Supporters say the measure is a safeguard against national security threats repeatedly highlighted in the federal government's annual threat assessment.
The plaintiff in the case, Peng Wang, is a Chinese citizen who's lived in Texas for 16 years on a student visa. Wang argued that the law discriminated against him and others like him, making it harder to rent long term or eventually buy a home.
But the appeals court on Wednesday ruled that SB 17 doesn't apply to Wang at all. To fall under the law, someone must be domiciled in a designated country, meaning that country is their permanent home. The judges noted that Wang considers Texas his home, plans to stay after school and has "no real plans to return to China."
"Wang is asking this court to find that his true, fixed, and permanent home and place to which he intends to return is an unknown place somewhere in China at which he has never lived and to which he has no intention to ever return," the ruling read. "We refuse the invitation."
Because Wang didn't meet those requirements, the court refused to move forward on the bigger constitutional questions, leaving SB 17 fully in effect.
Justin Sadowsky, legal director at the Chinese American Legal Defense Alliance and Wang's attorney, said he was disappointed in the decision, but believed future legal challenges would be taken against what he described as a "blatantly discriminatory law."
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