The Trump Administration Wants to Kick Undocumented Immigrants Out of Public Housing

“We’re sending the message that you can’t live off of American welfare on the taxpayers’ dime.”

Chris Kleponis/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On Wednesday night, the Trump administration proposed to gut a policy in place since the Clinton administration that gives some undocumented immigrants access to public housing without having to disclose their immigration status. Trump’s proposal will bar undocumented immigrants from claiming housing assistance, saying it’s “unfair” to the citizens who are on waitlists for public housing. 

“HUD Secretary Carson’s cruel proposal announced yesterday related to undocumented immigrants would break up families and destabilize communities,” Diana Yentel, the CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said in a statement. The rule, which was proposed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, comes at a time when the Trump administration has proposed several different policies designed to crack down on immigrants entering the country.

HUD proposes expanding its use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements in order to screen occupants of public housing. SAVE is a program administered by the Department of Homeland Security and allows federal and local governments to quickly check the immigration and citizen status of individuals in order to determine if they are eligible for government benefits.  HUD Secretary Ben Carson praised Trump’s leadership, saying the move would help American citizens get off of long housing waitlists.

But housing experts say the Trump administration’s characterization of undocumented immigrants living in public housing is wrong. “HUD does not subsidize undocumented immigrants who live in public housing,” Yentel said in a statement. “Every assisted tenant household must have an eligible citizen in it, and ineligible members are not subsidized.”

Despite this, Trump administration officials are falsely claiming that undocumented immigrants are overburdening social services, so the crackdown on public housing is necessary. “We’ve got our own people to house and need to take care of our citizens,” an anonymous administration official told the Washington Times. “As illegal aliens attempt to swarm our borders, we’re sending the message that you can’t live off of American welfare on the taxpayers’ dime.” Waitlists for public housing can be months or years-long in many US cities. Some jurisdictions have simply closed their lists. Notably, despite the “affordable housing challenges” referred to by HUD Secretary Ben Carson, the Trump administration has proposed slashing HUD’s budget three years in a row.

Yentel notes that the new policy may not really about the long waiting lists for public housing. “They know well that [the rule] would do nothing to free up new units,” she said. “The true purpose may be part of this Administration’s effort to instill fear in immigrants throughout the country.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate