The Trump administration and Texas’ state leaders should be trying to fix the housing affordability crisis for low-income Texans, but instead they are focusing their efforts on attacking and scapegoating immigrants and forcing nonprofits and providers to divert scarce resources away from housing. They’re misusing government agencies to conduct a discriminatory fishing expedition through our low-income housing programs. This will harm not just vulnerable immigrants, but also eligible low-income Texans who will lose access to scarce opportunities for affordable housing. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Texas leaders need to hear loud and clear that these efforts are wrongheaded and unacceptable.
The Trump administration and the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) have embarked on a rogue mission, supposedly to root out residents without eligible legal status who are accessing federal housing support, despite the fact that these individuals have been ineligible for federal housing assistance for decades1 Lacking eligible immigration status for HUD housing programs is not the same thing as lacking legal immigration status under Federal law. Some Federal legal immigration statuses are still ineligible for HUD housing programs.. The Trump administration has wiped out decades of settled law on these issues, but has not provided any concrete new standards for enforcement. They’re targeting immigrants on multiple fronts, purposefully creating confusion and fear.
First, HUD launched “Operation Cleaning House,” which requires public housing authorities to verify the citizenship or eligible immigration status of certain residents. But in Port Isabel, TX, we learned that every public housing resident received a notice requiring them to verify citizenship (which is not the same thing as asking them to verify eligible immigration status). This was not even what HUD asked for, and it sent shockwaves of chaos and confusion throughout the local public housing community, the residents of our state who experience the least stable housing.
Then, HUD proposed a new rule banning mixed-status households, where parts of the family are eligible and receive assistance, but other family members who do not claim eligibility live there but pay full rent. Under this ban, 4,500 Texas renter households who are eligible for assistance will lose their housing. Texas accounts for about a quarter of all such households in the country. Kicking these families out of their housing will result in eligible residents, including children, losing their housing, in addition to stigmatizing and punishing immigrant families. HUD is currently accepting public comments on this proposal until April 21, 2026, and the Keep Families Together campaign has provided incredible resources to get you started.
Finally, as if that wasn’t bad enough, HUD will soon be requiring grant recipients–including cities, states, nonprofits, and for profit property owners–to conduct enhanced legal status verification. TDHCA, Texas’ state housing agency, is now attempting to voluntarily comply in advance by implementing harmful and unworkable new rules for housing and service providers, despite the fact that HUD has told states that further guidance is forthcoming. For example, the agency will require housing providers to verify citizenship or eligible immigration status under the new federal “SAVE” system, which the Texas Tribune found has a up to a 14% error rate in certain Texas counties2 For example, Denton County. TDHCA would even require operators to track whether visitors at the property are undocumented through convoluted “harbouring” rules. This is an unfunded mandate: low-income housing providers are not being given any additional resources to administer these complicated rules. According to the agency3 p. 106, this is set to affect 28,895 low-income households in Texas. Worse than that, the verification system is not exempt from a sharing agreement with DHS, so all of the information provided goes into a black box of data accessible by ICE. Unless they change course, the TDHCA Board is expected to adopt these unnecessary and harmful rules for HUD multifamily housing administered by the agency on April 9, 2026.
Let’s call this what it is: Another episode of Texas and the Trump administration’s ongoing abuse of the law to terrorize immigrants in our state. And they don’t even care if they harm vulnerable Texans who are eligible for aid in the process.
It is not too late for TDHCA to halt these harmful and unnecessary rules, which will strain our affordable housing providers and leave eligible low-income Texas families out on the street. We call on them to stop this rulemaking process. TDHCA and other HUD funding recipients in Texas should not comply in advance with vague federal rule expectations.
HUD can and must halt this harmful and costly misuse of power, which not only vilifies and terrorizes immigrants, but also takes away crucial low-income housing for eligible Texas families who have no alternative. Instead, let’s get back to the real work of providing enough affordable housing for every Texan who needs it.
Tell HUD to halt their proposed Mixed Status Households ban and get back to work improving affordable housing!
Read the proposed rule and submit comments here, comments due April 21, 2026
Keep Families Together campaign, from National Housing Law Project and Protecting Immigrant Families
National Housing Law Project comment template
National Housing Law Project analysis of proposed rule
- 1Lacking eligible immigration status for HUD housing programs is not the same thing as lacking legal immigration status under Federal law. Some Federal legal immigration statuses are still ineligible for HUD housing programs.
- 2For example, Denton County
- 3p. 106
