Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner has informed the nation’s public housing authorities that households receiving a Section 8 voucher or residing in HUD-funded housing must provide proof of US citizenship or eligible immigration status.
In a letter to the executive directors and board chairmen of the public housing authorities, Turner noted that only one in four families eligible for HUD assistance receives it due to illegal immigrants receiving this benefit. Federal law is designed to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving federal assistance, but Turner complained the public housing authorities are not enforcing the law.
“No longer will illegal aliens be able to leave citizenship boxes blank or take advantage of HUD-funded housing, riding the coattails of hardworking American citizens,” Turner wrote in the letter, adding that “HUD will leverage 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.”
Turner’s letter is his latest action aimed at illegal immigrants. In March, Turner announced residency requirements for Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages were changed to eliminate the “non-permanent residents” category from the Title I and Title II programs.
“There will be no more illegal aliens getting HUD-backed home loans,” said Turner in announcing that policy change. “The Biden administration exploited taxpayer resources and manipulated FHA policy to allow illegal aliens to ride the coattails of the American taxpayer when financing on a home. For those who play by the rules and work hard to purchase a home, it is unconscionable. HUD will continue to implement President Trump’s executive order ending taxpayer subsidization of open borders and protecting the American Dream of homeownership.”
I totally agree with this. Enter our Country legally, I have no problem. But, illegally NO You are keeping others that need your apartment from having a place to live.
We don’t need any more here legally either. There are plenty of roofing, tile and concrete workers here already. These people are not going to create anything. We have already seen how their 2nd generation end up in the same boat as the birth right citizens kids. We need to cut it off. They will not be removing the 30 million estimated illegals in this country. They will end up staying here. They will get around this law by having 1 legal immigrant showing they are renting and they will allow 8 more illegals to move in. Everyone will see how bad the damage is when the baby-boomers start passing away at rapid rates.
Just a little racist hate? code of ethics much? and before you start that mouth on me I am not backing the Illegals either but know how to be a professional.
Overall Section 8 has worked for many families and landlords. There are still some problems but there have always been problems for landlords with rentals in the private market. 1 in 4 families qualify but don’t have access to Section 8 housing is a problem. Is the money sitting on the sidelines for the other 3 out of 4 that qualify or has Congress not appropriated enough funding to meet the needs of those that are qualified? If the money is not appropriated then the measures or guidelines need to be changed or the monies need to be made available for this Section 8 program. I’m really not one that wants more federal government rent subsidy programs. I’ll accept those issued by municipalities if those cities or towns pay for it themselves. If illegal immigrants are getting housing benefits thru the Section 8 program then they should be taken off the roles asap. Does Scott Turner and HUD have an estimate of this abuse? I’d like to see their estimates and finally the actual number of illegal residents removed to make way for our US citizens.
This ruins neighborhoods. You are forcing good families to pay a tax to be in safe neighborhoods that are forced to keep up with their housing. This is a taxed prison
I own rental properties but when potential tenants ask if I accept Section 8 I respond with “NO”. The quality of tenants on section 8 is not what I want in my updated, remodeled and well located properties. Often they add additional people into the property without them being on the lease. Then the next time the landlord goes in to inspect or make needed repairs they find 8 or 10 people sleeping on bare mattresses on the floor throughout the rental. No thanks!
I do not believe they will enforce this. They will find a way to get around it. Both Democratic and Republican parties do not have the best interest of the population that actually built this country. They only answer to donors. Neither party has done anything for the working families of this country. That is why only one demographic is suffering birthrates. Look at our power-grid in this country. What happened to the 1.5 trillion dollar infrastructure bill? USaid took it all and laundered it to politicians and wars. Nothing for us.
This all reads nice but if you do not do a follow up on this story you will not see where it ends up. Donors love slaves (illegals) for work.
I work in the industry. HUD requires section 8 recipients prove legal status but they invite all their illegal friends and family move in but managers and housing authorities don’t enforce it. Tax Credit on the other hand does not require proof of citizenship and their are several illegals living in subsidized housing. I worked in Aurora CO and saw the Venezuelan thing a year prior to hitting the news. it really needs to be enforced but it’s a female dominated business and they have the tendency to let it slide.
How about not allowing foreigners who don’t even live here buy houses with cash? Who knows where this cash is coming from. This drives up house prices and rents. And there is a lot of fraud in public housing, no oversight, people stay on sec. 8 forever, no wonder the waiting period is years long for deserving people.
Section 8 and Public Housing allow for a housing subsidy per eligible citizen. So if an illegal parent has 3 US born children, they are eligible for 75% of the subsidy. Slam dunk! Plus, the staff sometimes fraudulently changes eligibility. Some landlords collude to receive steady payments. The head of household should be required to receive the subsidy not children.
Housing costs are high for several reasons.
1) In certain regions, the population is very high and dense, thus housing costs rise due to heavy competition.
2) Mega Investor groups (like Blackstone) own hundreds of thousands of housing units, usually in highly populated areas with better jobs and high housing demands.
But those mega-investor groups usually charge high rent rates.
Having nearly 30% of the housing supply gobbled up by mega-investor groups is huge reason why home prices have risen so high, and it is an anti-trust, anti-monopoly problem that few want to touch (possibly because many in the real estate industry own stocks in those companies??)
Are Illegals to blame? Or is it the Businesses who HIRE them to blame?
Ask yourself why it is that people across party lines have major concerns with illegal workers coming into the country, YET, NOTHING ever seems to change?
It’s because many big businesses (and many small businesses too) do NOT want it to change.
They love illegal workers and the low pay and high pressure work they can inflict on them.
Many documentaries (Food Inc I and II, and Farm to Taber) expose that many businesses pay for human traffickers to recruit and bring illegal workers into the U.S. for work on farms, processing plants, and other businesses.
My father was a hard core Trumper and a GOP conservative before Trump.
He complained bitterly about “illegals taking over our country”. (He only pointed out illegal Latinos, but NEVER got mad at the pasty white illegal Europeans or Canadians or Australians or South Africans).
Every week, my dad drove down to the street corners to hire illegals standing on the corner to work at his restaurant and at his home, and YOU and I pay for all the real costs of those illegal immigrants. So my father actually hired illegal workers illegally because he did NOT want to pay livable wages! He also cheated on his income taxes at staggering levels and was lucky to NOT get caught.
Such hypocrisy is on display with the many businesses that whip up public hysteria about “illegals pouring into the country”, yet those same businesses have lobbying groups that fight any immigration reform that would provide a way to vet foreign workers efficiency, thus creating a worker shortage, thus justifying human trafficking of illegals so that those businesses can UNDER pay and abuse illegal workers who will tolerate almost anything rather than be ratted out to ICE by their bosses if they complain.
Those corrupt businesses support politicians with huge donations to KILL legislation that would allow sensible immigration reform.
One of them is a Farm Lobby called
“The National Council of Agricultural Employers (NCAE)”
This is from the NCAE policy priorities page below.
“Oppose any and ALL administrative or legislative initiatives (that would have the effect of) expanding workforce enforcement procedures in agriculture, such as hot goods procedures and expanded human trafficking provisions (i.e. fight proposed laws that would cut down human trafficking).
(Parenthesis are for clarity)
This info is from the YouTube videos “Farm to Taber”, an Ag Sciences major who has worked side by side in the fields with various workers and managed them too.
This specific info is her YouTube edition titled “How US Agriculture Built the ICE Crisis”
Don’t be fooled by the “Blame the illegal immigrant game”. You and I are being scammed by those bad actor businesses (and investors) who fight against efficient legal foreign worker policies.
Those bad actors want failed and weak immigration policies to ensure a steady supply of desperately poor illegal workers to fill the worker gap.
We are all paying the price, and so are the good actor businesses who DO hire LEGAL workers and pay them livable wages and still make good profits on their businesses hiring the legal way. It can be done and IS done in many areas, including in many well run farming communities (I know more of those in certain counties of CA).
Only the criminal businesses are to blame because they are the ones bringing illegals into the country. Wake up.
Thanks for your insights Julie! Let’s see if there is a politician reading this that will do something about it.
Secretary Scott Turner has sent directives and letters to housing authorities nationwide, asking for verifiable citizenship or “eligible immigration status” information
But on the other hand, I keep wondering about the practical and human implications. Many people in mixed-status households might be impacted—families where some members are citizens or legal permanent residents, but others are not. There’s fear already among immigrant communities that public housing—which isn’t just housing, but often a lifeline—could become unsafe or unstable due to new eligibility checks.