In a proposed rule published in the Federal Register, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would tighten eligibility for HUD-funded public housing by requiring residents to prove citizenship or eligible immigration status, a move advocates said could trigger large-scale loss of assistance and forced moves.
HUD’s proposal would limit the funding and housing eligibility it provides to citizens and eligible noncitizens, the AP reported. The rule would require every resident in HUD-funded housing to show documentation establishing citizenship or eligible status, including people age 62 and older who, under the prior approach, only had to show proof of age.
HUD framed the change as a corrective to what it called long-standing loopholes. In a statement, HUD Secretary Scott Turner said the proposal would ensure that residents in HUD-funded housing are eligible tenants and that the agency would have “zero tolerance” for what he described as pushing aside U.S. citizens while enabling others to exploit those “decades-old loopholes.”
The proposed change also targets what advocates refer to as mixed-status families—households where some members qualify for assistance while others do not. Advocates said the rule would effectively bar those households from remaining in public housing arrangements that rely on HUD funding, even when part of the household is eligible.
Shamus Roller, executive director of the National Housing Law Project, criticized the proposal as an effort to evict immigrant families that include both citizens and noncitizens. Roller said the proposal would remove immigrant families from HUD housing and described it as targeting citizen and noncitizen residents together.
Roller and other advocates said the practical outcome could be eviction and separation. Sonya Acosta, a senior policy analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the rule would force mixed-immigration-status families to choose between losing rent help that pays for housing each month or separating family members, and Acosta said people without documented immigration status have never been eligible for rental assistance.
In its analysis, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that changes in eligibility could overturn a rule that has been in place for decades and could affect up to 20,000 families or as many as 80,000 people. The group’s estimate, as described in the AP report, emphasized that many affected families may struggle to provide required documentation.
The AP report also said HUD did not immediately specify how long it may take for the rule to take effect after it is published in the Federal Register, which it is expected to do officially on Friday.
In February 2026, the proposal arrives against a broader policy push that HUD linked to immigration enforcement priorities. Turner’s statement framed the rule as part of that crackdown effort, while housing advocates argued that tightening documentation requirements would put families at risk of losing their housing assistance.