The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will share records about certain immigrants living in low-income housing or getting rent vouchers in Cambridge and nationwide with immigration authorities.
“There is no way to stop [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] from getting the information,” Michael Johnston, executive director of the Cambridge Housing Authority, told his board Wednesday.
The move, which has been feared since president Donald Trump took office with a vow to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, was announced March 24. Housing and Urban Development said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Homeland Security to give access to its records on “illegal aliens” getting housing aid. The announcement labeled the agreement “American Housing Programs for American Citizens.”
HUD rules allow certain immigrants who are “ineligible” for housing benefits to live in public housing or get rent vouchers if at least one family member is a citizen or has other permanent status, such as a green card. These tenants are called a “mixed household.” Ineligible residents are not necessarily undocumented – they may have documents allowing them to be in the country legally, such as student or work visas or temporary protected status; migrants allowed to live here under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are also ineligible.
Johnston said 42 “mixed families” live in CHA housing or have Section 8 rent vouchers in Cambridge. Under authority rules, they pay a 10 percent surcharge on their rent; another move by the Trump administration will almost certainly increase their payments.
Johnston’s disclosure of the agreement between HUD and the homeland security department alarmed authority chair Elaine DeRosa, who asked whether the mixed families could get any help. “This administration has shown themselves to be extremely vindictive,” Johnston said. “You don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water.”
In a message after the meeting, Johnston said his remark “does not mean blind cooperation, it means we need to think about our next steps, figure out what we have to do and what we do not have to do, but with respect to these 42 mixed family households, HUD already knows who they are, regardless of what we do or do not give them.”
“Because CHA serves over 8,000 households, I feel that we need to be thoughtful and cautious moving forward,” he said.
The agreement between HUD and the Department of Homeland Security said the two agencies would concentrate on “criminal aliens” getting housing subsidies but also said the work might lead to referrals for immigration enforcement against all “illegal aliens” getting help, according to news reports.
Potential rent surge for some
In another change for the local housing agency, HUD has ordered a small number of housing authorities that are allowed to disregard some of its rules because of their high performance – including Cambridge’s – to calculate rent for mixed families using the federal formula instead of choosing their own method, such as the authority’s 10 percent surcharge. The federal regulation requires the rent to be adjusted so any ineligible family members won’t get a subsidy.
Depending on the family composition, the rent for a mixed household could rise sharply if families lose part of their subsidy.
The housing authority got an email from HUD ordering it to make contact to discuss how to stop using its own 10 percent surcharge and adopt the federal method. Johnston said local; managers were to meet “internally” Thursday first. “Once we have the meeting with the coordinator, we can determine next steps and will reach out to those mixed families in our portfolio,” he said. Letters notifying the families will include available “resources,” Johnston said.
The rule for 25 years
Two lawyers who represent low-income tenants here said the authority adopted the surcharge 16 years ago and HUD has approved it annually.
“If the CHA is now forced to eliminate this long-standing rent policy, it is likely that rent burdens will increase, families may be forced to move, and staff time for completing rent calculations increased,” attorneys Susan Hegel and Courtney Libon said. Both are attorneys at Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services. Hegel is also the lawyer for the Alliance of Cambridge Tenants, the organization representing authority public housing and voucher tenants.
Trump in his previous term proposed a HUD rule that would have barred anyone without permanent status from getting subsidies such as living in public housing or a Section 8 rent voucher, essentially forcing mixed families or their ineligible members to leave. After president Joe Biden was elected, the federal agency dropped the proposal.
HUD Secretary Scott Turner didn’t answer directly when Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego asked him in his Senate confirmation his position on housing mixed families. “We have to take care of American citizens and American families,” Turner said. “It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s not what we’re just called to do, it’s the law. My job would be to uphold the laws on the books.”
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.
This is a very unfortunate headline. It seems to have led some people to believe that Michael Johnston of CHA “handed over” to the federal government information about immigrants in CHA housing that HUD did not already have. But because HUD provides funding for CHA tenants, information about them is provided to HUD when these individuals apply for the housing. Thus there are no grounds–or none that have been credibly alleged–for believing that CHA has somehow capitulated to the Trump administration
What must be “handed over”–as the article explains–is information that HUD already possesses about immigrants in public housing across the U.S. And it must be handed over, per new orders from the Trump administration, by HUD to the Department of Homeland Security. That is, indeed, nefarious, but it is something the Trump Administration–not CHA or the City of Cambridge–is doing.
A more accurate headline could have prevented some serious confusion here.