{"id":471965,"date":"2025-07-30T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/?p=471965"},"modified":"2025-07-30T14:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T21:44:09","slug":"trump-deportation-housing-immigrant-renters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/_ko\/housing\/2025\/07\/trump-deportation-housing-immigrant-renters\/","title":{"rendered":"They already live on the edge. Trump\u2019s immigration crackdowns now threaten their housing"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Santa Rosa, a mother of six children says she\u2019s struggling to pay the rent following her husband\u2019s deportation \u2014 but fears eviction if she even requests to move into a smaller place from her landlord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Los Angeles, a Latino family sued their landlord and a real estate agent over illegal eviction, only for an attorney to suggest they were likely to be detained<\/a> by immigration agents before the case could go to trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Oakland, renters have been asked if they were \u201clegal\u201d<\/a> by a landlord seeking to push them out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the state, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has scooped up swaths of household breadwinners, leaving their families scrambling to afford rent while grieving their absent loved ones. But the impact of those operations stretches further: The fear of deportation alone has discouraged many immigrants from exercising their rights as tenants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard enough to be a tenant in California, where rents are among the highest<\/a> in the country. Immigrants who are living illegally in the country often lack a reliable credit history and work low-paying jobs with tenuous benefits<\/a>. They already find it harder to secure housing, pay more<\/a> for the housing they do get, are more likely to live in overcrowded conditions<\/a> and may be more likely to face eviction<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s intensifying immigration crackdown leaves those renters more vulnerable to eviction and exploitation, which could plunge more immigrants into homelessness or overcrowding, or even lead some to \u201cvoluntarily\u201d leave the country, housing rights attorneys and scholars say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fear of retaliation from landlords has created what advocates describe as a chilling effect on immigrant renters, which \u201csubstantially undercuts\u201d California\u2019s strong tenant protection laws, said David Hall, co-directing tenants\u2019 rights attorney with Centro Legal de La Raza, a nonprofit legal aid group in Oakland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can have the most protective laws in the world, but if people are afraid to enforce those laws \u2026 it\u2019s like for those people, those laws don\u2019t exist,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immigrants already face higher housing barriers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Finding a house. Making the rent. Warding off eviction. Every stage of navigating California\u2019s housing market is already more challenging for California\u2019s immigrant renters compared to their U.S.-born counterparts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Undocumented immigrant renters<\/a> have access to far fewer public benefits than U.S. citizens. Even when benefits or services are available, there\u2019s a \u201clower rate of uptake\u201d among those who are living illegally in the country, due to a lack of awareness and fear of accessing those resources, said Thai V. Le, a research scientist at the USC Equity Research Institute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those immigrants are therefore more likely to be rent-burdened, which experts define as paying more than 30% of a household\u2019s income in rent. As of 2021, two-thirds of undocumented renters statewide<\/a> were rent-burdened, compared to 57% of all immigrant renters and 53% of their U.S.-born peers, according to the California Immigrant Data Portal by the USC Equity Research Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once they find a place to rent, tenants without legal immigration status are less likely to assert their tenant rights<\/a> \uadf8\ub9ac\uace0 more likely than others<\/a> to cram into overcrowded housing leased by friends or family members. Such arrangements often expose tenants to subpar living conditions, deprive them of legal protections because their name is not on the lease, and puts them at higher risk of homelessness should even one of their housemates lose income, said Melissa Chinchilla, a researcher with the Latino Policy and Politics Institute at UCLA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seventy percent of foreign-born Latinos in California<\/a> who are homeless lived in housing they did not hold the lease for, compared to 46% of U.S.-born Latinos, a June 2025 study by the University of California San Francisco found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And once an undocumented immigrant becomes homeless, it is harder for them to regain housing, Chinchilla said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey may not be able to provide a credit check,\u201d she said. \u201cThey may be paid cash. So they may not have that history of their income.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Do they want to create waves?’<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

All those fears and barriers have been dialed up to 11 as Trump has returned to the White House with more force and focus on aggressive, indiscriminate immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under his administration, the \ubbf8\uad6d \ubcf4\uac74\ubcf5\uc9c0\ubd80<\/a>, \uadf8 Internal Revenue Service <\/a>\uadf8\ub9ac\uace0 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development<\/a> have agreed to share residents\u2019 personal data with ICE, which will soon see unprecedented levels of funding<\/a>. Proposed cuts to immigrants\u2019 access to public benefits such as early childhood education, health care<\/a> \uadf8\ub9ac\uace0 housing programs<\/a> threaten the livelihood of families who rely on those services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, people\u2019s worst fears are being confirmed,\u201d said Cynthia Moreno, a senior data analyst with the Equity Research Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Farmworkers work in a field outside of Fresno on June 16, 2025. As deportations rise, more undocumented workers are finding it hard to pay the rent. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters\/CatchLight Local<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration\u2019s widely publicized deportation blitz \u201ccreates a much more vulnerable environment for people who already, in the landlord-tenant relationship, have a disadvantage,\u201d said Marie Claire Tran-Leung, an attorney at the National Housing Law Project, a tenant rights advocacy group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

California\u2019s tenant protection laws are among the strongest in the nation. They include a statewide cap<\/a> on how much landlords can hike the rent each year, limits on application fees and security deposits and strict terms and conditions<\/a> when a landlord moves to kick a tenant out. On paper, those rights apply to tenants, regardless of immigration status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\uc5d0\uc774 2018 state law<\/a> bars landlords from asking about or disclosing a tenant\u2019s immigration status to anyone, including federal immigration agents. It\u2019s also illegal for housing providers to harass or threaten<\/a> tenants over their immigration status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not every tenant is aware of or willing to exercise their rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven if a tenant has a really good landlord, if in the back of their mind they are always worried that (the landlord) could get them on the radar of ICE, a tenant might be deterred or chilled from enforcing these rights,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Central Valley, attendance at tenants\u2019 rights workshops has dropped as immigrants fear being targeted by ICE at large events, said Daniela Juarez, a registered legal aid attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOrganizations have stopped advertising their Know Your Rights Workshops and counting on word of mouth instead \u2014 for fear of becoming a target. Others are choosing to only do workshops by appointment to not expose their clients,\u201d she wrote in an email. \u201cOverall, they have all seen a chilling effect in services and are worried it will only get worse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Families are also afraid to appear in court for housing-related issues as immigration agents regularly detain people at courthouses across the country. In March, news of such an arrest outside the Sonoma County Probation office rippled through the immigrant community in Santa Rosa, said Patrick McDonell, a housing attorney with Sonoma County Legal Aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a lot of clients who are basically willing to take a deal that is not the best deal that we could get them in order to not have to be present in a courthouse,\u201d said McDonell.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s been true even in cases where he and his colleagues believe a landlord\u2019s allegations are \u201cbogus or legally insufficient,\u201d he said. \u201cThat person nevertheless is going to have to move out, just because we know that we don’t have a client who we’re going to be able to take to court.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fear doesn\u2019t stop there: Asking for a repair. Making an informal complaint. Attending housing rights workshops. Seeking a routine accommodation. For undocumented immigrants, families with mixed immigration status or anyone who might otherwise be concerned about drawing the attention of immigration enforcement agents, such routine interactions have become more fraught. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFolks are really having to have a risk assessment,\u201d Juarez said. \u201cDo they want to create waves? Do I want to make my landlord upset?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘No silver bullet’ to financial hardships<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Fear of deportation is also dissuading immigrants from going to work or receiving public benefits, which experts say could risk economic repercussions<\/a> across the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During Trump\u2019s first administration, immigrants withdrew from federal food benefits<\/a> due to fear of getting targeted by immigration enforcement or hurting their chance at becoming citizens. Chinchilla said she fears history will repeat itself. Already, Trump is asking states to share information about food voucher recipients, prompting a lawsuit from California and 18 other Democratic-led states<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis fear was already there. I can only imagine how much more heightened it is now that we know it\u2019s a reality that people\u2019s information is really being shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Farm workers work in fields outside of Camarillo on July 11, 2025. As deportations rise, more undocumented California workers are finding it hard to pay the rent. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters\/CatchLight Local<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In Santa Rosa, a woman named Karen, who asked to be identified only by her first name because of her immigration status, lives with four of her six children in a two-bedroom apartment. The monthly rent is $2,299, according to the lease she shared with CalMatters. After ICE deported her husband \u2014 who earned the bulk of the family\u2019s income as a gardener \u2014 back to Honduras in April, she said, she has scrambled to keep her family housed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She contemplated asking the property manager to move the family to a smaller apartment. That would mean packing all five family members into a one-bedroom unit, but it would technically be affordable, she said. But Karen, who said she overstayed her visa from Honduras, worries that the mere request might provoke her landlord to initiate eviction proceedings. She said she\u2019s also reticent to look for work herself, given her lack of legal status. Instead, she said, the family is scraping by on the income of her one working-age daughter and on money borrowed from family members while she considers her options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There aren\u2019t any obvious legal ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For renters like Karen who, as a result of a deportation, simply don\u2019t have the funds to pay the rent, California\u2019s expansive tenant protections don\u2019t offer a remedy, even if she were willing to go to court, said McDonell at Sonoma County Legal Aid.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe reality is there’s no silver bullet or solution to a lack of money to pay the rent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some local governments, such as Los Angeles County<\/a> and the cities of Long Beach<\/a> \uadf8\ub9ac\uace0 Los Angeles<\/a>, are establishing donation-funded programs to help immigrants make rent and other payments. The state also has several immigrant assistance programs<\/a>, and California lawmakers authorized a $25 million boost earlier this year to provide legal services to immigrants through nonprofit organizations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But those dollars get spent down really fast, and \u201cthere\u2019s always more need than there are dollars in the account,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In rural California, resources are scant and more scattered and hard to reach without a car, Juarez said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s evictions everywhere \u2014 there\u2019s just less help to combat them in our rural communities and we could use all the help we can get,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CalMatters reporter Sergio Olmos contributed reporting. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\t\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\tREAD NEXT<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t
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Thousands of Californians lost work after LA immigration raids \u2014 including citizens<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Worksite immigration raids are supposed to free up jobs for citizens. Here’s what really happens<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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