Housing uncertainty meets workforce strain: What to know about HUD’s directive, mixed-status families, and legal-status reviews

For thousands of Rio Grande Valley families who rely on public housing to stay housed, a new federal directive on legal-status verification is introducing a new layer of uncertainty.

That uncertainty is landing as Texas has also begun tightening legal-status verification in another core part of daily life: work.

Under a separate state policy that took effect this year, many applicants for occupational and professional licenses — including barbers, cosmetologists, electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians and other trades — must now prove they are lawfully present in the U.S. before a license can be issued or renewed.

Together, the housing and workforce changes create parallel pressure on families’ ability to remain housed and employed.

“We’re very shocked to see this kind of directive go out,” Dani Marrero Hi, deputy director of La Unión del Pueblo Entero, said about HUS’ ‘Cleaning House’ directive. “This takes us to a whole new level because everybody deserves fair housing…. That is the whole purpose that we have these welfare programs.”

Who does this affect?

The directive, issued last week by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, instructs public housing authorities to verify tenants’ citizenship or eligible immigration status and gives agencies 30 days to review flagged records and take required action.

The directive does not require housing authorities to re-check every tenant, only those whose records have been flagged for possible issues. It also does not change who qualifies for housing assistance.

HUD says it flagged nearly 200,000 tenants in a nationwide audit. However, being flagged does not automatically mean a person is ineligible for housing assistance, the agency said.

Mixed-status households are not automatically disqualified under HUD rules, but they may still be flagged for verification and required to provide additional documentation.

Still, if an individual is determined to be ineligible, a housing authority may be required to terminate the assistance, depending on the overall makeup of the household. Agencies that fail to comply could face sanctions, including withholding or reducing funding.

HUD has not released local-level data showing how many of those flagged records are tied to households in the Rio Grande Valley.

A data analysis by the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal shows more than 14,300 households across the Valley receive HUD housing assistance, including over 3,000 public housing units and more than 11,200 Housing Choice Vouchers, commonly known as Section 8.

Those households are overseen by 18 housing authorities across the four-county region, with the Brownsville Housing Authority overseeing the largest share.

The Journal reached out to Brownsville Housing Authority CEO Carla Mancha, who did not respond to a request for comment. Brownsville Mayor John Cowen also did not respond to a request for comment.

“Citizenship” language drives confusion

Marrero Hi said residents in Port Isabel recently received a letter that appeared to frame the requirement as limited to U.S. citizens.

“I saw a copy of the letters that folks in Port Isabel received,” she said. “And that letter is really confusing because it says you have to be a U.S. citizen.”

That language, she said, does not match federal law.

HUD’s directive, however, uses the phrase “citizenship or eligible immigration status,” a distinction that includes some noncitizens.

The difference matters in a region where many households include relatives with different immigration situations living under one roof, more commonly known as mixed-status families. .

“There are so many people that live in public housing that are mixed-status families,” Marrero Hi said.

Worried residents

LUPE has begun receiving calls from residents trying to make sense of what the directive means.

“We received some calls from people who live in Port Isabel, and honestly people who live all over the Valley that live in public housing asking what is true and what isn’t,” Marrero Hi said.

Misinformation spreads quickly.

“Sometimes people don’t know what is true, what is not true,” she said. “Because receiving a letter like that or hearing about it on social media, you don’t know if that’s someone that’s exaggerating information.”

‘Where are they going to go?’

Marrero Hi said residents are already asking the most basic question.

“If they need to leave, where else can they go? Like literally where are they going to live?” she said.

LUPE is pressing city and county officials to respond.

“We need to come up with a solution,” she added. “If it’s not fighting back, then the county needs to mobilize to do something else to house folks.”

RGV Business Journal Managing Editor Naxiely Lopez-Puente contributed to this report.