APNewsBreak: Homeland Security backs off plan to seize Vt. farmland for border station

APNewsBreak: Feds back off plan to take Vt. farm

MONTPELIER, Vt. — Sen. Patrick Leahy says the Department of Homeland Security will close a border station in Vermont rather than expand it by seizing a dairy farmer’s land.

Leahy told The Associated Press on Thursday that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has agreed to his request to close the Morses Line station on the U.S.-Canada border.

The federal government wanted to spend about $5 million to expand the station but wanted to take land from the Rainville family dairy farm near Franklin to do so.

The family didn’t want to sell, and the government notified them that eminent domain would be used to take the land if they didn’t.