Trump Revives 2019 Plan to Cut Housing Assistance for Undocumented Immigrants

The Trump administration has submitted a proposed rule change to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that would eliminate housing assistance for any mixed-status households, meaning households where at least one person is an undocumented immigrant.

According to an article by Patrick Sisson in Bloomberg CityLab, this would mark a major change to the long-held mixed-status rule, which allows households with members of mixed immigration status to receive a proportional amount of housing assistance funds. “This policy stood unchallenged for decades, but in 2019, the first Trump administration sought to upend the HUD rule, saying that it allowed ineligible people to receive benefits and contributed to lengthy waitlists for housing assistance.”

The change is likely to lead to a wave of evictions and housing instability for mixed-status families. “According to HUD’s 2019 estimates, roughly 25,000 households would be affected by the rule change, containing 108,000 residents, including 55,000 children who are largely US citizens.”

Sisson notes that the change would also have significant impacts on public housing agencies, potentially causing them to lose roughly $200 million in revenue. “Because their housing aid is prorated, mixed-status families pay significantly more for rent, and losing their higher-than-average contribution to housing costs would end up costing housing authorities significant revenue.”