PORT ISABEL, Texas, a Gulf Coast city of about 5,000 people, saw a neighborhood that had long seemed steady suddenly emptied out, with movers and garbage collectors handling household belongings by the curb. An AP report described how the shift followed a sequence of letters from the Port Isabel Housing Authority that residents feared meant they would lose their public housing because of their family members’ immigration status.
According to the report, the housing authority sent residents a letter on Feb. 3 saying that the Trump administration wanted every household member to prove legal status within 30 days or face eviction. Three weeks later, the authority sent a note labeled a “clarification” that residents did not need to provide such proof. Still, many families treated the first message as a warning and began leaving quickly.
The authority’s communication sequence left a lasting impression in Port Isabel, where many immigrants work in hotels and restaurants on nearby South Padre Island. The report said half of residents living in Port Isabel public housing left within a month of receiving the first letter, and that the occupancy rate fell from 91% in January to 43% in May, far below a stated national average of 94%.
The proposed federal policy at the center of residents’ fears was not yet in effect, the report said. The housing authority did not explain the initial misunderstanding, and officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press, according to the AP account.
Advocates and residents described how panic spread in the meantime. The report said fears about eviction and rumors that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could become involved prompted some residents to consider whether staying would expose them to retaliation, including deportation risk. A single mother from Mexico raising two teenage children who are U.S. citizens spoke to AP on condition of anonymity, saying her family decided it was “better to leave and avoid any retaliation.”
The AP report described the tradeoffs families made to avoid public housing after the letters. The mother and her children found an apartment within the same school district that costs about $500 more per month, and the report said the move added roughly 10 minutes to the commute to the island, where both the mother and her daughter work. The report also said the daughter is a top student who planned to go to college with scholarship offers, but worried about how the family would manage financially.
Other families faced additional barriers. The report said one mother moved her family into a one-bedroom trailer home parked between other trailers, with her oldest son sleeping in the living room. Another family sold beds and other furniture to fit into a small trailer home but found the landlord would not allow them to use the mailing address, affecting children’s school and health insurance.
The episode also highlighted what the Trump administration’s proposal would change in rules for household eligibility. For decades, the report said, families with at least one legal or eligible resident could live in public housing if those ineligible due to immigration status paid a full, unsubsidized share of rent. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to reverse that, the report said, according to decades-old rules it described.
In February, the Trump administration proposed that any household with one ineligible resident would disqualify the entire family. The report said the administration estimated 24,000 recipients were ineligible in 20,000 households, and quoted HUD Secretary Scott Turner saying, “We have zero tolerance for pushing aside hardworking U.S. citizens while enabling others to exploit decades-old loopholes.”
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which advocates for low-income families, estimated that 79,600 people could be forced to leave their homes under the measure, according to the AP report. The report added that the rule would disproportionately affect children and Latinos, and said it drew more than 16,000 public comments, many critical, including from city leaders across the country.
As an example of that opposition, the AP report said the New York City Council told HUD that an estimated 12% of city households have at least one member who lacks legal status, and that some 240,000 children live in those homes. The council wrote that the proposed rule would “unequivocally lead to increased displacement, homelessness, poverty, and decreased educational and health outcomes,” according to the AP report. HUD is expected to publish a final version of the rule after considering public comments, the report said.
In Port Isabel, the proposal was still only a plan—but the housing authority’s letter sequence produced the kind of disruption families feared could follow. For residents who left after the initial warning, the clarification came too late, and the uncertainty they acted on has continued to follow them as they try to keep children in school and pay more for housing.