HUD Will Make Every Assisted-Housing Tenant Prove Citizenship or Legal Status, but Critics Say 80,000 Could Be Displaced

Every tenant in federally assisted housing, citizens included, will have to back up their claim to U.S. citizenship or eligible immigration status under a final rule the Department of Housing and Urban Development published Thursday.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a department announcement that the rule guarantees “only American citizens and certain eligible noncitizens will reside in HUD-funded housing.”

“It’s unacceptable that America’s homeless veterans, disabled, elderly, and victims of domestic violence languish on waitlists while illegals and ineligibles scam our system,” Turner said. “American taxpayers will no longer foot the bill. Promises made, promises kept.”

The rule takes effect Dec. 14, according to the Federal Register notice. It covers public housing, Section 8 rental assistance and several smaller programs, and it applies to family members of every age.

Its biggest change targets “mixed-status” households, where some members are eligible and others are not. Since 1995, those families could stay in subsidized housing as long as aid covered only eligible members, CBS News reported.

Under the new rule, that prorated aid becomes temporary while eligibility is checked rather than continuing indefinitely, the National Apartment Association said. HUD may defer ending aid for up to 18 months to ease the transition.

The rule also ends the option for a household member to simply decline to claim eligible status. Tenants who say they are citizens must sign a declaration and a consent form, and HUD will expand use of the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE database to check status.

Current mixed-status tenants have 90 days after Dec. 14, or until March 14, 2027, to submit their evidence, law firm Ballard Spahr noted in a client alert.

HUD said a joint audit with DHS found nearly 200,000 assisted tenants with incomplete or unknown eligibility verification, while HUD-funded housing serves only a quarter of eligible households in need. The Daily Caller described the change as closing a loophole.

Housing advocates say families will be split up. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates about 20,000 mixed-status families, roughly 80,000 people, could be affected, including about 37,000 children who are mostly U.S. citizens, CBS News reported.

“This is tearing apart families and sowing division,” said Marie Claire Tran-Leung of the National Housing Law Project.

A coalition of 22 state attorneys general opposed the rule, warning in an April letter that it “would inflict significant economic costs on the States and exacerbate the affordable housing crisis.” The largest concentrations of affected households are in New York, California and Texas.

HUD first tried the change in 2019, during Trump’s first term, but the proposal was withdrawn in 2021. The agency reintroduced it in February, drawing more than 11,000 public comments.

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