HUD shuts the 'mixed status' loophole that let illegal immigrants live in taxpayer-funded housing

The Department of Housing and Urban Development's new rule barring illegal immigrants from living in taxpayer-funded housing through "mixed status" families was published Thursday and takes effect Dec. 14.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner said Thursday night that illegal immigrants and other ineligible people were "siphoning up to $218 million a year in taxpayer-funded housing assistance. That ends now."

Under the rule, every applicant and tenant in covered HUD programs, including public housing, must document U.S. citizenship or an eligible immigration status, regardless of age. Since 1995, families with members who are in the country illegally have been allowed to stay in subsidized housing as long as the subsidy was cut down to cover only the eligible members. Now that reduced aid is only temporary while everyone's status is checked.

"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 when HUD finalized the rule. "American taxpayers will no longer foot the bill. Promises made, promises kept."

HUD says a joint audit with the Department of Homeland Security found nearly 200,000 tenants with incomplete or unknown eligibility, while HUD-funded housing serves only about a quarter of the eligible households that need it.

Opponents, including a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general, say about 20,000 mixed-status families could be affected, most of them in New York, California and Texas. Tenant groups say they will try to stop the rule before it takes effect.