(NewsNation) — The Department of Housing and Urban Development will be giving thousands of public housing authorities thirty days after a written request to hand over the citizenship status of all tenants or risk losing funding.
But some experts say the agency’s demand appears to be aimed at immigration enforcement rather than housing policy.
The directive from HUD, confirmed to NewsNation by the agency, will instruct over 3,000 public housing authorities to provide tenants’ immigration status, addresses and Social Security numbers, among other identifiers, within a month of their written request.
HUD did not specify when those letters would be sent and did not return a request for comment regarding its role in immigration enforcement.
David Gonzalez Rice, senior vice president of policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said HUD’s new request seems to be a facet of the ongoing immigration crackdown.
He fears tenants in mixed-status housing will begin to self-evict to avoid scrutiny amid aggressive immigration enforcement.
“Those with legal status have been getting detained by immigration authorities, so we don’t have a lot of confidence that they will be safe from detention,” he said.
The agency signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” with the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year, committing to data sharing. While it’s unclear if the agreement extends to helping with deportations, HUD Secretary Scott Turner said his agency would “leverage resources including technology and personnel to ensure American people are the only priority when it comes to public housing.”
Gonzalez Rice said the nature of HUD’s request is ambiguous, especially since housing authorities are already expected to collect data to verify the eligibility of aid recipients.
“Inasmuch as they’re asking for pieces that housing authorities have recently reported, it’s either redundant or maybe trying to put housing authorities in a difficult position,” he said.
HUD will give housing authorities 30 days to hand over citizenship information
In his letter, Turner tells public housing authorities that the agency will utilize “all available enforcement actions against entities who do not comply with the request for citizenship information, including but not limited to, examination of HUD funding and/or evaluation of PHA program eligibility,” according to the Washington Examiner, which viewed the letter.
HUD did not provide a copy of the letter upon NewsNation’s request.
The agency asks for “data concerning the number and/or location of tenants with ineligible immigration status in all Public Housing covered programs,” among other information, according to the outlet.
While federal law specifically bars noncitizens from public housing programs, the long-standing HUD mixed-status rule allows families to live together in subsidized housing if one family member is eligible so long as the housing subsidy is prorated to exclude the ineligible individuals from assistance.
An “ineligible” immigrant is not necessarily someone who is in the U.S. illegally; immigrants can have legal status and still not be eligible to receive housing assistance, according to the National Housing Law Project.
More than 25,000 families of mixed-immigration status receive housing assistance, according to a 2019 estimate by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Trump’s first administration had sought to end the mixed-status rule in 2019, but that effort was halted due to the pandemic.
While HUD’s demand could be a rehashing of that initiative, the more immediate goal for data seeking seems to be for deportations, housing experts told NewsNation.
“They’re clearly interested in reinstating the 2019 one, but in the short term, the fact that they have these very short-term goals leads me to believe that they’re more interested in the deportation side of it,” Judge Glock, director of research at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, said.
Public housing official fears immigration fallout has begun
Gonzalez Rice believes some tenants and housing authorities are already taking steps to avoid immigration confrontations.
“Even if the information requested [by HUD] is the kind of information that’s already shared, there’s this message that’s being communicated that there will be additional scrutiny or additional asks of housing authorities,” he said. “It could translate into housing authorities deciding that they don’t want to serve any immigrant families or eligible families with immigrant members.”
Those who work with housing authorities to help place people in public housing are concerned that HUD’s request could lead to a “chilling effect,” Gonzalez Rice said.
Families and tenants, as well as managers of properties and housing agencies, could feel that they need to protect themselves, their families and their programs by leaving the program or by restricting the program more tightly than the law requires, he added.
Several housing groups have flagged concerns over the upcoming directive, potentially leading to instability amid growing homelessness and a limited affordable housing supply.
“Rather than address sky-high rents, increasing evictions, and record homelessness, Trump and Turner are forcing public housing authorities to divert their limited resources away from affordable housing and towards wasteful policy designed to cause fear and hardship among immigrant families and scare them into self-evicting,” Marie Claire Tran-Leung, eviction initiative project director at the National Housing Law Project, said in a statement.
Immigration may be the short-term goal, but the policies will adhere to law in the long term, supporters say
Supporters of HUD’s measure say that while immigration enforcement could be the short-term goal, the agency is taking steps to make sure that only those with appropriate legal status are utilizing public benefits in accordance with the law.
“If I were to guess, they’re looking more at deportations than actually breaking leases in this case,” Glock said. Regardless, he said, ending the mixed-status rule would carry out the law, which says HUD should not be giving “housing benefits to noncitizens and especially to illegal immigrants.”
Glock said HUD’s clampdown on mixed-status households is “entirely justified,” falling in line with Trump’s public charge rule.
Under that rule, immigrants classified as likely to become dependent on certain government benefits in the future may be denied a green card, visa or admission into the United States.
But Glock notes that immediate evictions would not be appropriate.
“How [HUD] implements this rule will really demonstrate whether or not the removal of noncitizens is done in a humane fashion,” he said.
“It certainly wouldn’t be justifiable to end existing leases or to kick people out of their homes immediately, but it is entirely justifiable to stop awarding housing benefits based on individuals who are not actually citizens of the country, which the law and Congress has supported for decades.”
