Many illegal immigrants live in public housing

Untold thousands of illegal immigrants live in public housing at a time when hundreds of thousands of citizens and legal residents are stuck waiting years for a spot.

Illegal immigrants make up a tiny portion of the 7.1 million people in federal housing, according to government statistics. But authorities may be unaware of thousands more, and critics say no illegal immigrant should get housing benefits.

The issue made headlines in November with news that Zeituni Onyango, an aunt of President-elect Barack Obama, was living in Boston public housing while in the country illegally.

The federal government, which funds the lion's share of the nation's public housing, requires only that illegal immigrants share a home with at least one family member who is in the country legally and pay their share of the rent.

While there are no hard numbers on illegal immigrants in public housing, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports that 29,570 people — 0.4 percent of all those in federally funded housing — are "ineligible noncitizens." Some may be on temporary visas, such as highly educated workers or college students, but many are believed to be illegal immigrants.

Frank Bean, director of the University of California, Irvine's Center for Research on Immigration, Population and Public Policy, estimates at least half of ineligible noncitizens — or about 15,000 — are illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children. Anyone born on U.S. soil is automatically a citizen, making their families eligible for federal housing.

The HUD tally does not offer a full picture of how many illegal immigrants are in public housing.

It doesn't include housing funded by state and local governments, where eligibility requirements vary. Massachusetts, where Obama's aunt occupied one of about 50,000 state-funded units, doesn't ask immigration status under a 1977 federal consent decree in a class-action lawsuit that prohibits the state from denying the benefit to illegal immigrants.

Other illegal immigrants may live in public housing without notifying authorities.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090101/ap_on_re_us/public_housing_immigrants