They’re Organizing to Stop the Next Assault on Immigrant Families

Community organizers in Los Angeles are rallying in opposition to a Trump administration rule that they say will displace and fracture immigrant families, increase homelessness and potentially throttle rent collections to the point that local housing authorities might be forced to shutter some of their stock.

The kicker? The rule hasn’t even been formally proposed.

“Pretty much as soon as the [presidential] election was called, we started sending emails off to people, saying, ‘Get ready,’” said Tabatha Yelos with People Organized for Westside Renewal in Los Angeles, one of a number of community groups involved in the opposition effort. “We are trying to keep people’s homes and families together.”

The rule would do the opposite. Put simply, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to begin denying federal rent subsidies to any household where even one occupant lacks legal immigration status. That’s according to multiple accounts of the draft of the proposal leaked to ProPublica last fall. The national rule is expected to be published sometime this month, the community organizers say, with public comment to follow.

If implemented, the rule would most directly affect mixed-status families, where most in a household are documented but one or more may not be. It would almost certainly put those households in the position of either losing the subsidies, which they need in order to make their rent, or splitting up their families — even if multiple members of the household are legally eligible for the assistance.

The proposal marks a sharp departure from longstanding government policy on such subsidies, but it’s right in line with President Donald Trump’s ongoing attacks on immigrants and their families. The nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that nearly 80,000 people nationally could lose assistance under the rule, including upward of 30,000 in California. About 11,000 of those are in the Los Angeles area alone.

The policy would affect nearly 37,000 children across the country, the center’s analysis found. Almost all of those children are U.S. citizens.

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The federal program of housing subsidies for low-income tenants is multilayered, but it generally works in a couple of ways. Those who qualify either receive a voucher to pay part of their rent, live in buildings where the government pays the subsidy directly to the landlord or live in housing that’s owned outright by the government — public housing, as it’s known.

For more than 40 years, Housing and Urban Development has made such assistance available based on financial need. In most cases, those who qualify pay a percentage of the rent that is tied to their income — usually 30% of what they earn after deductions — with the government picking up the rest.

If a household includes someone who isn’t eligible for the program because of their immigration status, that person’s share of the rent is higher. But the other eligible people living there continue to receive their subsidies, and the family is allowed to remain together under one roof.

The new HUD proposal blows up that model. It’s part of a broader effort by Trump to roll back federal housing programs in a number of ways: placing time limits on living in public housing; attaching work requirements to the subsidies; and defunding the programs in general. Taken together, these moves could cause 4 million people to lose housing assistance, experts told ProPublica last year.

The fallout of the proposed immigration rule runs off in multiple directions. One potential result, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ research suggests, is actually a reduction in total rents paid. Having an undocumented person in the house pushes a family’s monthly rent higher, since that person doesn’t get a subsidy. Many housing programs rely on those higher rent payments to fund some of their operations. They may have to cut back on their housing stock if their budgets decline.

A 2019 HUD estimate, put together when a similar rule was being considered during Trump’s first term, found that driving undocumented residents out of subsidized housing arrangements would increase HUD costs by $200 million because of the lost higher payments.

But all of that pales in comparison to the human toll. Forcing families to choose between splitting up or losing their rent help has the potential to put many of them in almost immediate housing emergencies, facing evictions or the prospect of homelessness.

“These are all low-income earners,” Yelos said. “Certainly a lot of them are going to end up on the streets.”

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On a recent weekend afternoon, Yelos led a meeting designed to raise awareness of the impending proposal of the HUD rule. Her local organizing group, she said, is part of the national Keeping Families Together initiative. (Other community groups sponsoring the meeting included The Rent Brigade and Ground Game Los Angeles.)

There are ways to oppose the rule, or find longer-term workarounds to it, activists say. One is to appeal directly to local housing authorities, like HACLA in Los Angeles, to slow-walk its implementation by allowing, for example, an extended period of time in which families could appeal their cases before facing eviction.

On a broader level, state lawmakers could consider investing in state-funded public housing. Yelos pointed to Massachusetts as a potential model for California. That state’s program does not rely on HUD money, so it isn’t bound by the kinds of federal rule changes the Trump administration is pushing.

Nationally, it would take an act of Congress to prevent the rule from ultimately taking effect — an unlikely event before the midterms. In the meantime, People Organized for Westside Renewal is among the community groups urging citizens to write to HUD in protest. The agency is required by law to allow a period of public comment and to consider all comments made before finalizing a rule.

“It’s crazy,” Yelos said of the rule. “Of all the models that we need to solve the housing crisis, the subsidized model is the most sought-after. It is exactly the type of housing we need.”

It is also under direct threat, the latest in a seemingly unending series of assaults on the immigrant community under this president.

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