HUD moves to cancel illegal immigrants' public housing access

 <https://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/ap_19045641405222jpg/> 

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson is shown a view of
Philadelphia by Lopa Kolluri, 

 

Chief Development and Operating Officer for the Philadelphia Housing
Authority (PHA), Thursday Feb. 14, 2019, in Philadelphia. Carson was in
Philadelphia to announce the ...
<https://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/ap_19045641405222jpg/>
more >

By  <https://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/stephen-dinan/> Stephen Dinan -
The Washington Times - Wednesday, April 17, 2019

The Trump administration is proposing a new rule to try to block some 32,000
illegal immigrant-led families from claiming public housing assistance,
saying it’s unfair to hundreds of thousands of Americans who are stuck on
waiting lists.

 

 
<https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/department-of-housing-and-urban-deve
lopment/> Housing and Urban Development notified Congress Wednesday of the
new rule, kicking off a schedule of publication and notice and comment that
could have the plan finalized later this summer.

The plan would scrap Clinton-era regulations that allowed illegal immigrants
to sign up for assistance without having to disclose their status.

 

Under the new  <https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/donald-trump/> Trump
rules, not only would the leaseholder using public housing have to be an
eligible U.S. person, but the government would verify all applicants through
the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, a
federal system that’s used to weed illegal immigrants out of other welfare
programs.

 

Those already getting
<https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/department-of-housing-and-urban-deve
lopment/> HUD assistance would have to go through a new verification, though
it would be over a period of time and wouldn’t all come at once.

“We’ve got our own people to house and need to take care of our citizens,”
an administration official told The Washington Times. “Because of past
loopholes in
<https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/department-of-housing-and-urban-deve
lopment/> HUD guidance, illegal aliens were able to live in free public
housing desperately needed by so many of our own citizens. As illegal aliens
attempt to swarm our borders, we’re sending the message that you can’t live
off of American welfare on the taxpayers’ dime.”

 

Illegal immigrants’ access to taxpayer-funded welfare and other benefit
programs has long been controversial.

 

It was considered a non-starter for Democrats when they wrote Obamacare a
decade ago, and they excluded illegal immigrants from the health law. But
the party’s attitude has changed and now some Democrats are pushing to
expand the 2010 law to include unauthorized migrants.

Polling, though, suggests Americans remain opposed to public benefits
flowing to illegal immigrants, and President
<https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/donald-trump/> Trump has suggested
it’s time to crack down on loopholes and interpretations that have allowed
them to do so.

 

In the case of Section 8 housing assistance, there are competing laws that
have created confusion.

In 2017 the
<https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/department-of-housing-and-urban-deve
lopment/> HUD inspector general investigated illegal immigrants in New York
who were using public housing under a special program for people with HIV or
AIDS, and found that the government had never clearly stated whether housing
was a federal public benefit subject to a 1996 ban for unauthorized
migrants.

 

Further complicating matters, Clinton-era rules specifically allowed “mixed”
immigration status families to gain housing benefits. As long as one person
in the home is an eligible U.S. resident, a family can qualify. The eligible
person doesn’t need to be the head of the household, and could even be a
minor child.

The government created a system that allows people to apply for housing
assistance as “non-contending,” meaning they decline to say whether they
were legally in the country. Benefits are supposed to be adjusted on a
pro-rated basis to account for those non-contenders.

 

The new
<https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/department-of-housing-and-urban-deve
lopment/> HUD proposal is likely to draw opposition from immigrant-rights
activists who say penalizing mixed-status families means hurting the legal
residents in those families, who are often young children.

A similar argument is playing out in a debate over certain tax credits that,
while claimed on behalf of citizen children, are paid to illegal immigrant
parents.

GOP-led efforts to tighten those tax rules have met with stiff resistance.

Yet the administration argues the lengthy backlogs for housing assistance
makes the new
<https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/department-of-housing-and-urban-deve
lopment/> HUD proposal an obvious change.

 

Only one in four families that would qualify for housing assistance actually
get the benefit right now, and most of those waiting for
<https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/department-of-housing-and-urban-deve
lopment/> HUD help are likely poor seniors or people living with a
disability.

The average waiting time nationally for housing assistance is 26 months. In
places like Los Angeles it’s more than four years.

Singer and actress Cher seemed to take notice of the challenge in a tweet
earlier this week.

“I understand helping struggling immigrants,” she said, “but my city (Los
Angeles) isn’t taking care of its own.”

 

She pointed to 50,000 citizens she said were living on the streets, are
below the poverty line and go hungry.

“If my state can’t take care of its own … how can it take care of more,”
Cher wondered.

 <https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/donald-trump/> Mr. Trump
approvingly retweeted Cher’s post.

“This proposal gets to the whole point Cher was making,” the administration
official told The Times.

 

 

EM         -> { Trump for 2020 }

On the 49th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in
anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni
katika machafuko" 

 

 

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