Tens of thousands of families crossing the border into the U.S. are looking to put a roof over their heads. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) says it’s here to help — and will kick some legal U.S. residents to the curb to do so.
“We are doing everything we can possibly to take any living person in this nation off the streets. That’s kind of our posture,” HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge said in announcing $5 billion in emergency housing vouchers.
But by waiving the legal residency requirement for obtaining a voucher, HUD is lengthening the already-long odds on Americans in need. Vouchers were available to just 20 percent of eligible applicants before Fudge rolled out her taxpayer-funded welcome mat for illegal aliens.
More than 453,000 migrants, many of them in family units, illegally entered the United States at the southern border from February through April, according to Southwest Land Border Encounters figures. U.S. Border Patrol conservatively expects the number to exceed 1 million by year’s end.
In 2020, HUD estimated that 580,000 Americans, including some 52,000 veterans, were homeless. The situation, which has not improved, is so dire in big cities that entertainer Cher tweeted: “I understand helping struggling immigrants, but my city (Los Angeles) isn’t taking care of its own.”
As an opening gambit, before HUD started offering housing vouchers to illegal aliens, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) signed an $87 million no-bid contract with a nonprofit group to arrange lodging for migrant families at hotels in Texas and Arizona. The controversial contract for short-term use of 1,200 hotel beds is now under federal investigation.
Ms. Fudge may think she’s being a good soldier in an “all-of-government” response to this administration’s self-inflicted immigration crisis. But by allowing illegal aliens to cut the line in front of legal residents she’s only making matters worse.