This is one of those things that makes you look, then look again, and think, well, it's about time. A new rule issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will now require proof of citizenship or eligible immigration status for any and all residents of federally funded public housing.
The rule could affect nearly 80,000 people living in mixed-status households, including tens of thousands of U.S. citizens, which will have Democrats across the land racing for their fainting couches.
Residents of federally funded public housing will be required to show proof of U.S. citizenship or eligible immigration status under a new rule published Thursday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The measure could displace nearly 80,000 people, including tens of thousands of citizens in mixed-status families, from their homes, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy institute.
Here's the thing about laws, including, in fact, especially, our immigration laws: Sharing a household with someone who isn't breaking the law doesn't give one a pass when they are breaking the law, no matter what that law is. If someone robs a bank, they go to prison, even if they are living with someone who didn't rob a bank. If someone is in the nation illegally, out they go, no matter where they are living and who they are living with. That's how laws work.
And yes, it's perfectly appropriate to restrict public housing, paid for by the American taxpayers, to Americans. We taxpayers are picking up the tab, and it's appropriate that we should only pay for our fellow Americans. If the rabid pro-illegal left wants subsidized housing for illegal aliens, let them pay for it out of their pockets, not ours.
Here's the onion:
Since 1995, mixed-status families have been permitted to live together in HUD-funded housing as long as federal subsidies covered only eligible household members. The new rule may force these families to decide whether to remain together in nonpublic housing or split up their households.
"This is tearing apart families and sowing division," said Marie Claire Tran-Leung, director of the Evictions Initiative Project and managing attorney at the National Housing Law Project.
You know what, Ms. Tran-Leung? Too bad. The only people responsible for tearing apart families are the people who came here illegally and knowingly remained here illegally. It's their fault, and nobody else's, and there's no sane reason why the American people should be subsidizing people who are in the country illegally for any reason. No housing, no government benefits of any kind. Oh, we can allow for emergency, life-saving medicine; if an illegal alien shows up at a hospital ER in the middle of a major heart attack, we'll save them. We're not savages. But once they recover? Deportation flight, baby.
While long overdue, this is a policy that needs to be writ large, across all the programs and services that the United States offers; citizens and legal residents only need apply. The incentives are all wrong otherwise; in the world the Left prefers, entering the country illegally is fine, and you can still live in federally subsidized housing if you just move in and establish a "household" with someone who isn't an illegal alien.
That's ridiculous. So now, it looks like we'll be fixing that issue where HUD is concerned. Let's not stop there.