On the eve of the biggest literary release since Superhead’s first book, the Trump administration, being the cauldron of sneaky shit done while America isn’t paying attention, has proposed a new rule to end public housing aid for undocumented immigrants.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development run by the president’s personal ASMR machine and the only black in Donald Trump’s cabinet, Ben Carson, proposed a rule that would ensure that only American citizens got public housing despite undocumented immigrants paying billions in taxes.
Oh, you didn’t know? That’s because that part of the undocumented immigration debate is often overlooked. Trump and his band of merry deplorables love to paint the picture of undocumented workers as freeloading off the American taxpayer but that is absolutely false.
From CNN:
In 2015, according to the IRS, 4.35 million tax returns were filed using ITINs [Individual Taxpayer Identification Number], accounting for more than $13.6 billion in taxes.
In addition to tax return filings, officials have estimated that undocumented immigrants also contribute billions to Social Security annually through payroll tax deductions. In 2010, for example, the Social Security Administration estimated that payments from unauthorized workers accounted for about $12 billion in tax revenue for Social Security.
Apparently there was a loophole that allowed undocumented immigrants to receive housing assistance from HUD and of course, leave it to Ben Carson to find that caveat before leaving the department and putting an end to it.
According to the New York Times, this is the latest move from the Trump administration to end America’s long-held reign as a culturally tolerant imaginary homeland. In making the move to toss undocumented immigrants out of their homes and onto the streets, the department believes the long waiting list for public housing will be shortened.
The rule would use the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program, or SAVE, to verify the citizenship of everyone living in the household that receives assistance, CNN reports.
Oh, and what about those already living in public housing? Well, they would have 18 months to move or be tossed out on the street.
The Times estimated that as many as 25,000 households could be affected.
“Thanks to @realDonaldTrump’s leadership, we are putting America’s most vulnerable first,” the worst and only HUD Director I’ve ever known by name tweeted, presumably about kicking folks out of their homes.
“Our nation faces affordable housing challenges and hundreds of thousands of citizens are waiting for many years on waitlists to get housing assistance.”
Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro, who was the HUD secretary under President Barack Obama, didn’t see it this way.
“Once again, the Trump administration is using the immigrant community as a punching bag to distract his base from his own political troubles,” Castro told the Times. “The bottom line is that our government is terrorizing families—first with ICE raids, now with evictions.”
According to CNN, “the rule was submitted to Congress on Wednesday for a 15-day review period, after which HUD will issue an open request for comment” but no one’s paying attention when they’re busy combing over a 400-page report to find out how many times the president of the United States cheated on America with a Russian thot.