Western Center submits comments opposing HUD anti-immigrant rule proposal

The comment period has ended for the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s proposed rule to deny housing assistance to “mixed-status” families that include undocumented or otherwise ineligible individuals. The change would leave families with the choice of kicking out undocumented family members from their household, or completely losing assistance, which would also significantly impact many children who are U.S. citizens.

Western Center is strongly opposed to the rule; if implemented, it will have a devastating impact on over 25,000 families, and will create decades of generational instability and poverty. California in particular cannot afford for this rule to be implemented in the midst of our housing crisis. “Mixed-status” families are the backbone of our state; imposing this kind of baseless cruelty and instability is not only morally bankrupt, it is also devoid of common sense.

An excerpt from our comment is below. The full letter can be read here.

“As California’s oldest and largest legal services support center, we have over 50 years’ experience fighting to reduce poverty in our state through the courts, the legislature, and by working with state and local agencies to ensure our laws are fair and justly implemented. We can speak directly to which federal and state policies serve to reduce poverty in our communities and benefit our state and country as a whole and which policies worsen poverty, penalize families struggling to make ends meet, and hurt us all. HUD’s proposed rule threatens to exacerbate poverty by evicting over 25,000 families with mixed immigration status, betraying this country’s promise of opportunity in favor of an unreasoned, unworkable policy. Almost ten thousand of those families are in California. The rule should be withdrawn.”