Senate has passed a bill banning citizens from China and other “hostile nations” from buying farmland.

There’s a bill in the Texas state Senate that would ban the sale of real estate to Chinese, Iranian, North Korean and Russian citizens – all real estate.

If it passes, experts think it would be the first law of its kind since World War II with a blanket ban based on nationality. NPR’s John Ruwitch reports.

JOHN RUWITCH, BYLINE: The story starts here on the Devils River in remote Southwestern Texas. Its headwaters are on Alice Ball Strunk’s ranch.

ALICE BALL STRUNK: My great-grandfather purchased it in 1905. And so we just love it here.

GREG ABBOTT: I am signing a law that protects our critical infrastructure from hostile nations.

RUWITCH: By hostile nations, he meant China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. But that wasn’t the end of it. Last fall, Republican state Senator Lois Kolkhorst quietly filed Senate Bill 147. And in January, Abbott tweeted that he’d sign it.

GENE WU: It would mean that every permanent resident – so everyone with a green card, everyone who’s here on a visa, either invited to do business or invited here to study – would not be able to purchase property, would not be able to own property.

RUWITCH: That’s state Representative Gene Wu, a Democrat from Houston. Experts say the bill would end up mostly impacting Chinese people, since there are far fewer citizens of Iran, North Korea and Russia in Texas.

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