A new investigative report claims thousands of illegal immigrants are buying land and settling in a new development called Colony Ridge, located near Plum Grove, Texas.
According to The Daily Wire, the new Colony Ridge settlement, with potentially tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, is being built north of Houston, prompting concerns that the development could become a base for cartel operations due to its location roughly 400 miles inside the United States.
In an investigative report, the Daily Wire found that the Colony Ridge development is currently comprised of over 60 square miles, which is roughly the size of Washington, D.C. The population is estimated to be between 50,000 and 75,000, largely due to a marketing strategy that is aimed at the Hispanic population in Texas.
The Colony Ridge development is owned by developer William Harris. Under his leadership, the development is quickly expanding, partly due to a financing opportunity that allows illegal aliens to purchase land in Texas.
Todd Bensman, National Security Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Daily Wire that unlike traditional financing that requires buyers to have proof of income and credit ratings, Colony Ridge buyers are able to work around the typical financing requirements, even to the point of not being required to provide a social security number.
“With a traditional bank loan you need to be able to show that you have a credit rating and proof of income,” Bensman said.
He explained that buyers at the Colony Ridge development are able to purchase land with as little as a “few hundred dollars” for the down payment.
“The loan is directly from the developer, bypassing traditional mortgages,” Bensman said. He added that although buyers might be required to pay interest rates of roughly 15%, the Colony Ridge development often provides potential buyers with their only option to purchase land in the United States.
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Harris’s company conducts business under the name of Terrenos Houston (translated Houston Land). According to The Daily Wire, Terrenos Houston seems to directly target people who are either living illegally in the United States or are currently living outside of the United States.
Terrenos Houston directs interested buyers to connect with the company on Whatsapp in order to find out more information about purchasing land in Texas and advertises on social media platforms with captions such as, “Still renting? Own land in the United States!”
While Terrenos Houston allows people to purchase land in the United States, the company’s LinkedIn profile suggests that many of the people currently employed by the company are foreign nationals who are living in Colombia and other Latin American countries.
According to a current Instagram advertisement offer, two adjacent plots of land can be purchased for $65,000. However, buyers are responsible for constructing housing on the land.
Bensman told The Daily Wire that Colony Ridge “is in the midst of maybe its greatest boom ever” as migrants continue to cross the southern border into Texas under the Biden administration’s border policies.
Independent journalist Michael Yon shared his perspective of Colony Ridge with The Daily Wire after flying over and driving through the development multiple times in order to document its rapid growth.
“I don’t know how many live there now, but this is going to be big enough for 200,000 people,” Yon said. “They’re actually building a city.”
In his book, “OVERRUN: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in American History,” Bensman noted that law enforcement officials claimed Gulf and Sinaloa cartel members had purchased properties in Colony Ridge development.
“The Mexican cartels are very active in that they run safe houses, they run drugs, they do marijuana grows, they commit crimes,” Bensman said, based on conversations he has had with law enforcement officials. “This is a homeland security issue. It’s a public safety issue.”
