Landlords and local housing authorities are condemning the Trump administration’s proposal to kick mixed-status immigrant families out of subsidized housing, in a move by the Department of Housing and Urban Development that would essentially turn them into federal immigration agents and uproot more than 100,00 people from their homes.
“Although unauthorized immigrants are not allowed to receive federal housing subsidies, families of mixed immigration status can live in subsidized housing if one family member—even a child—is a legal resident,” The New York Times reports. Landlords say these are good tenants who “generally pay the rent on time, in part out of fear of attracting attention and referrals to law enforcement.”
But White House aide and white supremacist Stephen Miller has made it his life’s work to make life as miserable as possible for immigrant families, even if their tax dollars help pay for government programs. This policy would stretch far beyond punishing undocumented residents, because entire families may be forced to uproot themselves as a matter of protection. “Thousands of legal residents and citizens, including 55,000 children in the country legally, could also be displaced,” The New York Times notes.
Public housing administrators “would bear the brunt of the expense” of evictions, said Austin, Texas, Housing Authority official Sylvia Blanco. In Los Angeles, California, “the cost of enforcing the policy would be nearly $10 million.” Said L.A. Housing Authority official Doug Guthrie,“You can imagine, if you’re forcing the eviction of nearly one-third of these very large public housing sites, the impact that has on households as well as the broader community.”
HUD has already been engaged in anti-immigrant action. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients such as Edith Aguirre Vazquez, here since the age of three, had said they were being denied government-insured home loans, something HUD Secretary Ben Carson denied was the case to Congress. But a HUD official then contradicted his testimony, saying, yes indeed, they had been denying Dreamers loans.