HUD may end support for mixed-status immigrant households. Here’s what that means

Families with mixed immigration status may soon lose support from the Trump-era Department of Housing and Urban Development. In February, the agency announced a proposed rule that would prohibit “mixed-status” families, which include U.S. citizens and people without legal immigration status, from living in public and other subsidized housing.

HUD proposed a similar rule in 2019 that was ultimately blocked after receiving over 30,000 comments during the public comment period, with more than 95% of the comments in opposition to the rule. Now housing advocates are back at it again, with just days left to submit comments in hopes of stopping this rule.

People have until April 21 to submit public comments regarding the proposed rule targeting families with mixed immigration status. If this rule is to pass, immigrant families will face severe displacement, and rises in homelessness will occur.

“HUD’s regulatory impact analysis admits that if you prohibit mixed status families, if you kick out mixed status families, then the housing authorities will be able to serve less people and they won’t have enough to cover expenses,” says Marie Claire Tran-Leung, senior attorney at the National Housing Law Project.

She says this proposed rule is part of HUD’s effort to scapegoat immigrant families for the current housing crisis. HUD’s own analyses, as reported by Stateline, note that the households affected by the proposed rule make up less than 1% of those receiving federal rental assistance.

“This proposed rule, similar to the rest of this administration’s agenda, won’t do anything to fix the actual housing problem,” Tran-Leung adds. “This proposed rule will, by HUD’s own admission, decrease the overall number of affordable housing units. And right now we can’t afford to lose any more units.”

Verifying Status

If put into place, the rule would allow HUD workers to use a program from the Department of Homeland Security called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, to verify the citizenship status of HUD residents. The program reportedly produces false positives when trying to verify immigration status. The system has already misidentified hundreds of voters as non-citizens across five states.

Requiring HUD workers to verify citizenship continues the current administration’s attempt to make more federal employees immigration officers.

“SAVE is not a reliable tool for proving a person’s citizenship in part because this function is so new,” wrote members of the House Committee on Financial Services in a comment letter to HUD. “With reports of SAVE inaccurately flagging citizens as noncitizens and kicking them off voter rolls, we are wary of HUD’s proposal to use this system to verify status for housing benefits and its negative impact on U.S. citizens in the housing programs.”

HUD Secretary Scott Turner’s reasoning for the rule stems from a misinformed and factually incorrect idea that non-citizens are receiving housing assistance from the department. Therefore, according to Turner and the federal administration, this proposed rule will keep non-citizens from receiving housing assistance from HUD. But, HUD does not give housing assistance to people who lack an eligible immigration status (such as legal permanent residents and refugees).

Mixed-status families only receive assistance for members of their households who are legally eligible according to their immigration status. These families then pay the remaining portion of the rent themselves. For example, if the typical mixed-status family has four members and two of them are U.S. citizens, the family would receive 50% of the rental assistance that they would have qualified for if all family members were fully eligible. By receiving a smaller subsidy, the family then pays a larger share of their rent to cover the 3rd and 4th family member’s portion of the rent. In addition to those families making up a minuscule portion of the people receiving government assistance, they’re also paying more into the system than U.S. citizen households receiving assistance.

The Impact

For affected families, the proposed rule would mean choosing between receiving housing assistance and being separated from their children. Tran-Leung from the National Housing Law Project says that HUD knows families won’t separate from their children and that the ultimate goal is to get people to self-deport.

“They seem to suggest that if you kick out 80,000 mixed-status families, then you can bring in 80,000 like, quote, unquote, American families, but that’s not how the numbers add up,” says Tran-Leung, who noted the cost-benefit analysis that HUD has put forward with this rule is woefully inadequate. “In reality, there are going to be fewer households that are served. Just looking at the fact that you’re taking away these families that are both receiving a smaller subsidy and paying more for rent for the same unit.”

Submitting Public Comment

In Santa Barbara, where there are 148 mixed-status families renting apartments at subsidized rents, the housing authority is asking people to submit comments against the rule, and in LA, where “nearly one in five public housing households in our city is mixed status,” city leaders called for people to submit comments. According to Tran-Leung, anybody and everybody who is able should submit to public comment. The National Housing Law Project has put together the Keep Families Together Campaign, which provides step-by-step instructions on how to write and send public comments.

This story was produced through Equitable Cities Reporting Fellow for Anti-Displacement Strategies, which is made possible with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.