By Chris Cameron | The New York Times
The Trump administration has stepped up its effort to comb public housing rolls for immigrants lacking permanent legal status, telling public housing authorities across the country Friday that they would face sanctions if they did not adequately verify whether tenants met eligibility requirements.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development said in a statement that, after completing an audit of the federally funded public housing system, it had uncovered nearly 200,000 tenants who had not been explicitly verified as eligible for housing assistance, as well as “nearly 6,000 ineligible non-American tenants.”
Scott Turner, a former pro football player whom President Donald Trump picked to lead HUD, said that the agency was “rooting out abuse of taxpayer-funded resources.”
Michael Horgan, a spokesperson for the New York City Housing Authority, noted in a statement that the federal government already required housing authorities to submit documents indicating the citizenship status of all tenants. “We are evaluating this latest guidance and will assess our options and act accordingly,” he said.
HUD did not answer questions about what information it was seeking about tenants, and did not address a request to see the results of the audit. The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, an organization that represents nearly 40% of public housing nationwide, stressed in a statement that public housing authorities “follow federal regulations and guidance from the federal government.” There are more than 2.2 million residents in public housing nationwide.
Under federal law, permanent residents, refugees and asylum-seekers are permitted to live in public housing and receive housing assistance, while immigrants without legal status and some other categories of legal residents — diplomats, students and those on tourist visas — are not. It is unclear how many tenants identified by HUD as ineligible are living in the country without authorization or may be ineligible for another reason. For example, HUD also sets income limits and other eligibility requirements.
Trump moved quickly after returning to office last year to order federal agencies to scrutinize federal programs that could potentially benefit immigrants in the country illegally, as he accused officials — particularly those in Democratic-led states — of tolerating or encouraging widespread fraud in social services.
But Trump, so far, has moved less aggressively than he did in his first administration to evict public housing tenants over immigration status. In 2019, HUD proposed evicting thousands of legal residents and citizens, including 55,000 children who were in the country legally, under a rule that would prohibit families with at least one immigrant living in the country illegally from obtaining subsidized housing.
So far in Trump’s second term, HUD has not appeared to pursue that proposal, instead falling back on existing rules that allow families of mixed immigration status to live in subsidized housing, so long as at least one household member is a legal resident. In such cases, the subsidies are prorated based on the number of eligible members of the family. According to a HUD analysis in 2019, more than 108,000 people receiving benefits were in a household with at least one immigrant lacking permanent legal status.
In a letter sent to public housing authorities and property owners last month, HUD reminded them to perform routine checks to verify tenants’ immigration status and income, saying that they “may be subject to sanctions” if they did not perform the checks. It also noted the requirement that authorities prorate assistance to mixed-status families.
On Friday, HUD’s statement also said that its audit had identified nearly 25,000 deceased tenants. The statement did not specify if benefits had been fraudulently distributed to those tenants after they had died, though another unsigned statement provided to The New York Times later that evening said that “some of these deceased individuals were receiving benefits.” HUD did not provide additional details.
The Trump administration had previously incorrectly alleged widespread fraud in the Social Security system because their databases stored the names of people who had died, though the deceased were not receiving checks.
HUD concluded its announcement Friday by saying that it would “recapture funding for payments made on behalf of ineligible and deceased tenants.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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