HUD Abandons Fair Housing: AFFH Repeal and the Assault on Mixed-Status Families

The repeal of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, finalized by HUD Secretary Scott Turner in March 2025 (press release HUD No. 25-034, with the Federal Register publication on March 3), is a direct blow to the nation's only federal framework for actively reversing segregation. The 2021 AFFH rule required local jurisdictions receiving HUD funds to set concrete, data-driven goals to dismantle patterns of racial and economic exclusion—patterns left intact by decades of redlining and disinvestment. Project 2025's Chapter 16 explicitly called for this repeal and for eliminating special-purpose credit authorities used to advance equity, and the administration has now executed both. Without AFFH, communities are no longer accountable for breaking down barriers to opportunity, and fair-housing enforcement reverts to a toothless complaint-driven model.

At the same time, HUD is moving to exclude mixed-status families—where one or more members are noncitizens—from federally assisted housing. The proposed rule published on February 20, 2026 (HUD No. 26-015), would require proof of citizenship for all applicants. According to current HUD data, this would affect approximately 20,000 mixed-status households, encompassing about 80,000 people—including an estimated 37,000 children who are U.S. citizens. This is a resurrection of a 2019 proposal that was blocked amid widespread litigation; the current version is not yet final but represents the same cruel logic. The framing in Project 2025—that "local welfare organizations" should care for noncitizens—ignores the reality that federal housing assistance is a legal entitlement for eligible low-income households, and stripping it from families drives instability, homelessness, and harm to citizen children.

The alternative is clear and grounded in existing workable programs. Instead of repealing AFFH, the administration should enforce it vigorously, requiring every HUD-funded jurisdiction to identify and remedy segregation every five years. Instead of excluding mixed-status families, HUD should expand the Housing Choice Voucher program to serve the millions on waitlists, ensuring no assistance is denied based on immigration status. Tenant protections—right to counsel in eviction, just-cause statutes, and rent stabilization where possible—must be paired with these efforts. The answer to the housing crisis is not to shrink access but to guarantee that housing, as infrastructure for a decent life, reaches everyone who needs it.