The federal government estimates that its proposed rule change could threaten the housing of 36,000 eligible children living in immigrant and mixed-status households nationwide. Nearly a quarter of impacted families live in Texas.
AUSTIN, TX—Children’s Defense Fund-Texas (CDF-Texas), the Texas office of the national child and youth advocacy organization, strongly opposes changes proposed by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that would subject U.S. citizens in HUD-assisted housing to new status verification requirements and deny housing assistance to mixed status households in which some family members hold citizenship or an eligible immigration status while others do not.
By evicting mixed status families from their homes, applying new status verification requirements for all tenants in HUD programs covered by the rule, and creating a chilling effect on access to federal housing assistance among eligible immigrants, the proposed rule threatens to increase homelessness among children in Texas, causing devastating social, physical, and economic harm to marginalized children.
On Friday, CDF-Texas Senior Administrator of Policy and Advocacy, Trudy Taylor Smith, Esq., submitted a public comment to HUD in opposition to the proposed rule change.
“CDF-TX opposes this cruel proposal to force families with ‘mixed’ immigration status to either separate or lose their housing assistance, putting them at risk of eviction and, in worst cases, homelessness. The proposed rule is part of the current administration’s campaign to harm immigrants and their families and will worsen the affordable housing crisis while creating devastating impacts on the long-term physical, psychological, and financial well-being of tens of thousands of children.”
Read the full comment here: CDF-Texas’ Public Comment Opposing HUD Rule Change
Public comments on the proposal will be accepted until Tuesday at midnight eastern time. The federal department is legally required to read and respond to all comments received as part of developing its final rule, which could be implemented later this year.
Nationwide, the proposal threatens the housing of at least 36,000 eligible children. HUD analysis shows that nearly one out of every four mixed status families in America accessing federal housing assistance calls Texas home, suggesting that close to a quarter of all the children who could be impacted by this rule would live in the Lone Star State. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says the proposed rule would make 4,500 mixed status families in Texas ineligible for the assistance they currently receive.
CDF-Texas urges HUD to withdraw its proposal to change this rule in its entirety and to allow its long-standing regulations governing mixed status families and verification of status to remain in effect for the sake of all children and young people in Texas and across the United States.
