Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Releases Report Outlining Impact of Leaked Mixed-Status Rule
Jan 20, 2026
By Kayla Blackwell, NLIHC Senior Housing Policy Analyst and Sarita Kelkar, NLIHC Policy Intern
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) released new research detailing the consequences of a proposed rule that would affect mixed-status households’ access to rental assistance. The proposed rule, leaked in September 2025, would target mixed-status households—families with at least one member who isn’t eligible for rental assistance based on their immigration status—by largely ending the household’s ability to receive HUD-assisted housing (see Memo, 10/6/25). Under current regulations, mixed-status families have the right to contest eligibility and receive prorated assistance, even though federal funding supports only family members with an eligible immigration status. Removing these features of the mixed status rule would lead to impossible decisions for immigrant households, who would be forced to choose between family separation or self-eviction and potential homelessness. Moreover, the proposed rule’s requirement that individuals receiving or applying for assistance must provide documentation to prove their citizenship or eligibility creates a costly verification process: an additional barrier that fails to expand housing assistance even to fully eligible households.
In 2019, the first Trump administration proposed a similar mixed-status rule, though it was never published and withdrawn in 2021. If finalized, HUD’s own analysis demonstrated how 25,000 immigrant families would have been evicted from their homes—including 55,000 children eligible for housing assistance. CBPP’s report not only shares the extent of who is harmed by the proposed mixed-status rule, but also its disproportionate impact on low-income and other marginalized communities.
The report reveals:
Over 79,000 people in mixed-status HUD-assisted households would have to separate or lose their rental assistance under the proposed rule, including nearly 37,000 children and over 68,000 Latine people.
Of the 79,600 people affected by the rule, 86% are Latine, 56% are women or girls, and nearly half (46%) are children.
The new documentation requirements threaten access for nearly 8.5 million U.S. Citizens currently receiving HUD rental assistance—72% people of color, 24% who have a disability, and 21% older adults (aged 62 and older).
The proposed rule has impacts in every state, with a breakdown of who would be prohibited from receiving assistance and who would be subject to new documentation requirements at the household and individual levels in each state.
Stay tuned for further action on the mixed status rule from NLIHC, the National Housing Law Project (NHLP), and Protecting Immigrant Families (PIF).
Read the CBPP report here.