BROWNSVILLE — Guadalupe Rojas and his wife, Ninfa, yearn to build a home.

They saved money through the years and bought half an acre for their future home at Carrisitos Estates Subdivision near the Rio Grande about three years ago.

“It’s the American dream — el sueño Americano,” Ninfa said Friday.

It could turn into a nightmare.

U.S. Attorney Donald J. DeGabrielle Jr., at the request of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, filed condemnation lawsuits under the power of eminent domain Thursday and Friday against Rojas and 11 other property owners, including the Brownsville Public Utilities Board.

DHS is seeking to immediately take “temporary” possession of 159.29 acres of land for 180 days to survey, make borings, conduct testing and “access adjacent lands” in order to plan the construction of a fence intended to help secure the U.S. border with Mexico, according to public records.

DHS filed the suits in the U.S. District Court in Brownsville, just days after filing a lawsuit against the city of Eagle Pass in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

The lawsuits in Brownsville were assigned to U.S. District Judge Hilda G. Tagle, but she recused herself and they were reassigned to U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen.

Rulings on Homeland Security’s pleadings were pending as of press time.

“I don’t know why they did that,” Brownsville PUB attorney Eduardo Rodriguez said of the lawsuit filed against the utility. He noted that the city, not the PUB, owns the property the government seeks to access.

Others are still waiting to be sued.

“If they have access, they can do whatever they want. They could very well put the fence in the line of my home,” said Eloisa Tamez, an associate professor at the University of Texas-Brownsville/Texas Southmost College.

“Every time I sing patriotic songs now, I cry. It’s sad to see what is happening in this part of America,” said Tamez, who owns property in El Calaboz. She knows of two other landowners who also refused access to their properties who are not among the property owners sued Thursday and Friday.

For the Rojas family, land ownership came both at a price and a sacrifice.

“This is very unjust,” said Ninfa, a 32-year-old housewife who cares for the couple’s four children, Rosalinda, 12, Oscar, 8, Selena, 4, and 2-year-old Ninfa. Guadalupe, her 39-year-old husband, works at a lumberyard.

The Rojases don’t have an attorney.

In Hidalgo County, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid represents 20 property owners who have not been sued yet. Meanwhile, the agency has extended its services to Cameron County residents.

“It’s a drastic and contentious measure,” agency attorney Emily Rickers said of the Cameron County and Eagle Pass lawsuits, which she described as an “aggressive tactic.”

“The pleadings are really bare-bones,” Rickers said, noting that the lawsuits don’t say if access is to be given to federal surveyors or private contractors.

“This might change the liability,” she said.

Homeland Security determined that $100 to each property owner would be fair compensation for the six months that their properties are tied up. If the property is damaged, the department noted that it could pay more.

Rickers called the $100 “insulting.”

“It’s not enough to compensate landowners in case an accident happens on their property,” she said.

Homeland Security also seeks the right to trim or remove any vegetation or “structural obstacles” that would interfere with its work.

“The landowners may continue to use the property during this time, so long as that use does not interfere with the surveying and other investigatory work being done by the United States,” the lawsuits state.

U.S. Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, condemned Homeland Security’s actions in filing the lawsuits.

“It is an outright shame that the federal government has the audacity to sue our citizens for their land, some of which has been in their hands for generations,” he said.

“This is nothing more than a gross taking of private lands for a wall that will not even solve our border security problems. While this tragedy is now law, I urge our citizens to fight these lawsuits and not give any consent to allow the government to condemn their lands.”

Brownsville Mayor Pat M. Ahumada Jr. predicts the latest government tactics will “come back to haunt” public officials who support the fence.

“I would rather go down standing up for a principle than let the government trample over our rights,” Ahumada said.

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Brownsville Herald staff writer Kevin Sieff contributed to this report.