US Citizen Kids at Risk of Losing Housing Support Under HUD Plan

Tens of thousands of American citizens, most of them children, stand to lose public housing benefits under a Trump administration plan targeting immigrants without lawful status.

The proposal from the Department of Housing and Urban Development would deny assistance—including access to public housing and housing vouchers—to “mixed status” families that include members who aren’t eligible for public assistance.

That change would upend more than three decades of housing policy allowing those families to receive rental vouchers or access to public housing based on the number of eligible members in their household.

The HUD measure, released last month, is part of an array of new federal policies that aim to cut off access to public benefits for both unauthorized immigrants and those with lawful status.

The Small Business Administration has blocked loans to businesses with any foreign owners, including legal permanent residents. And US Citizenship and Immigration Services is crafting rules that would make approval of immigration benefits tougher for anyone deemed likely to rely on public assistance.

The housing agency’s proposal, though, acknowledges that almost half of the people expected to lose benefits are children of immigrants, nearly all of them born in the US. It would force about 20,000 families to consider separating or leaving public housing with few alternatives available, advocates say.

“The administration might argue they can stay in public housing if that family member leaves,” said Marie Claire Tran-Leung, a senior staff attorney at the National Housing Law Project. “That’s not realistic—especially if the people with status are children.”

Opponents are gearing up for a fight against the policy shift, starting with a public comment period on the proposed rule.

Limited Options

HUD has long allowed mixed-status families to receive prorated housing assistance based on the proportion of eligible household members.

Green card holders, refugees, and asylees all qualify for the support. Benefits are reduced based on the share of ineligible non-citizens, including unauthorized immigrants, students, and people with temporary status.

The agency’s Feb. 20 proposal, which revives a measure from the first Trump administration, would eliminate benefits entirely for any household with non-eligible residents. It would offer prorated housing assistance only until household members’ eligibility for benefits is verified.

The proposal also departs from current rules by requiring documentation like a birth certificate from US citizens, regardless of age. Instead of verifying the status of noncitizens—including 24,000 current members of mixed-status households ineligible for benefits—the rule would require HUD to run more than 8.8 million housing benefit recipients through the federal “SAVE” database. People identified as unauthorized in the US could be referred to the Department of Homeland Security.

Families are now weighing whether to separate or leave public housing programs.

Micaela, a resident of public housing in Los Angeles who asked not to be identified to protect her safety, told Bloomberg Law those benefits had provided “safe, dignified” housing for her four US-born children. But she and her husband are undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala and would have to leave the apartment where they’ve lived for 10 years.

“I’d probably be sleeping in my car,” if the policy is adopted, she said. “We’d probably be going out on the streets.”

Serving Fewer Families

HUD said the rule is necessary to implement directives from President Donald Trump to ensure no public benefits go to ineligible immigrants, redirecting that assistance to lower-income households that would fully qualify for housing assistance.

Housing Secretary Scott Turner said in a statement announcing the rule that the agency had “zero tolerance for pushing aside hardworking U.S. citizens while enabling others to exploit decades-old loopholes.”

But HUD’s own regulatory analysis acknowledges that Section 214 benefits would actually go to fewer families under the proposal because fully eligible households receive more housing assistance than those who pay a portion of costs under prorated benefits.

About 79,300 residents currently in the program would translate to just 24,100 people from fully eligible households under the proposal.

“It would not be a one-for-one replacement,” said Sonya Acosta, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Housing and Income Security team.

Public housing residents and advocacy groups organized a campaign to submit 30,000 comments on the first mixed-status rule in 2019. That proposal was never finalized, and was later withdrawn by HUD under President Joe Biden.

Now those groups are aiming to nearly double the number of responses before an April 21 public comment deadline.

“We know this has worked before to delay it,” said Tabatha Yelos, organizing director at People Organized for Westside Renewal, which works with tenant organizers in Los Angeles.

Enforcement Role

If finalized, the HUD rule would add significant new administrative burdens, even for families who fully qualify for housing benefits. Greater use of the DHS database that housing agencies would consult to verify eligibility also raises privacy and accuracy concerns, advocates said.

That data will inevitably lead to errors that bar eligible applicants from benefits, they said, and US citizens could struggle to locate documents needed to prove eligibility.

Tougher scrutiny will likely make many people wary of applying for benefits, said Esther Reyes, movement building director for the Protecting Immigrant Families coalition.

“What we saw in the first Trump administration, even if some of their priorities weren’t finalized, is those efforts had chilling effects on families,” Reyes said. “We’re seeing that again.”

While mixed families account for a sliver of all public housing recipients, advocates say the HUD proposal would put those agencies “on the front line” of immigration enforcement, said Georgi Banna, general counsel and director of strategic initiatives at the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. That means diverting tight resources from serving residents to confirming benefits.

“It will take a lot of energy and effort for agencies to retool their systems without any real benefit,” he said. “It’s not solving the housing crisis.”