In a letter to agency stakeholders and grantees last Friday, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner effectively doubled down on a recently-announced policy aiming to restrict Federal Housing Administration (FHA) financing to U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
On Feb. 19, President Donald Trump issued an executive order aiming to “prevent taxpayer resources from acting as a magnet and fueling illegal immigration to the United States, and to ensure, to the maximum extent permitted by law, that no taxpayer-funded benefits go to unqualified aliens,” the order said.
At the end of last month, Turner formalized HUD’s aim to comply with the executive order by issuing guidance that directs all FHA loan programs to implement a U.S. citizenship or permanent residency requirement.
It falls on Turner to implement this order at HUD, who said the presidential directive “emphasizes that the federal resources distributed by HUD shall be primarily focused on benefiting American citizens and other qualified recipients, not illegal aliens.” Turner added that the new order emphasizes the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, a law passed in 1996 following a Republican sweep of Congress in the prior midterms and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
That law “unequivocally prohibits illegal aliens from receiving certain federal public benefits, including many forms of assistance provided under HUD programs,” Turner said.
Overall outlook on assistance programs
When taken in concert with Section 214 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1980, which Turner said “prohibits HUD from making financial assistance available to persons other than United States citizens or certain categories of eligible noncitizens” in key programs, Turner has aimed to remind HUD stakeholders of the legal limitations and focus of the Trump administration’s overall outlook for its assistance programs.
“This letter serves as a reminder to all HUD grantees of their legal obligations to comply with these laws and the president’s executive order,” Turner said. He described issuing a directive to HUD’s senior leadership team to ensure compliance with the president’s executive order, which will result in material differences to grant processing going forward, he said.
“For example, going forward, grant agreements will include language that will require compliance” with the executive order, Turner said, and HUD will “take steps to ensure that federal resources are not used to support ‘sanctuary’ policies of state and local jurisdictions that actively prevent federal authorities from deporting illegal aliens.”
In response to the directive from HUD, the leader of the nation’s largest Hispanic real estate trade group called the move a “setback” in an interview with HousingWire.
“[…] Republicans have historically been the party of what I describe as the ownership society,” said Gary Acosta, co-founder and CEO of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) on March 27. “Homeownership is a critical component of that […] so to me, this is contrary to that. Is it going to affect a lot of people? It’s hard to say. There are lenders who have already reached out to me to say that this is going to have an impact on their pipelines and in their loan volumes.”
As the administration has placed so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions in its crosshairs, some local leaders of major cities have pushed back. At a House of Representatives Oversight Committee hearing last month, four mayors of major Democratic-majority cities largely defended their existing sanctuary policies.
“The false narrative is that immigrants, in general, are criminals [or] are undermining safety and harm,” said Michelle Wu (D), mayor of Boston. “That is what’s actually undermining safety in our communities.”
Brandon Johnson (D), mayor of Chicago, added that it was important “that the trust between community and law enforcement is strong. That’s ultimately how we have built a safer city.”