A church, a Jesus statue and a border wall: Inside Trump's latest land acquisition battle

A 29-foot-tall limestone statue of Jesus sits atop Mount Cristo Rey in Lourdes Castanon, Mexico. More than 40,000 pilgrims from around the world journey to the sacred site annually where Texas, New Mexico and the Mexican state of Chihuahua meet. The statue has crowned the summit of the peak since 1939, when it was carved on-site by the Catalan sculptor Urbici Soler. While some arrive on Good Friday, others on the Feast of Christ the King, some are barefoot and others ascend on their knees.Pope Pius XI created the Feast of Christ the King in 1925, three years after Mussolini seized power in Italy, through the encyclical Quas Primas. The feast teaches the baptised that no state holds their final loyalty. A century later, the American government intends to run a steel wall beneath the statue that bears the feast’s name. Currently, this site is the target of US President Donald Trump's latest land acquisition battle and building dream. On May 7, the Department of Justice filed a condemnation lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces, which owns most of the mountain. The Trump-Vance administration wants 14.529 acres at its base, a strip roughly 190 feet wide along the bor...