I ran the search tool looking for the link on the public housing thread but after ending up going back 14 pages through all the threads I gave up. If someone has that link available would you post it as related? Thanks!

Loophole Angers Illegal Immigration Foes

POSTED: 9:17 pm MST January 9, 2009
UPDATED: 8:54 am MST January 10, 2009

PHOENIX -- A loophole in federal law is enabling hundreds of illegal immigrants to live in homes subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, while thousands of others linger on waiting lists to get into those same units.

Those waiting lists are so long that most of them have been frozen for years, meaning people can't even submit an application for public housing. In Arizona, hundreds of those units are occupied by people who aren't even U.S. citizens.

The Salazar family has lived in a four-bedroom Phoenix public housing apartment for the past six years -- all 10 of them.

Their rent is only $150 a month and subsidized by the U.S. government, even though both parents are illegal immigrants from Mexico.

"They were not going to give it to my mom because she wasn't born here, but then they said, 'Yeah, since you have a U.S. born person,' she was able to get it," said the couple's 14-year-old daughter Miriam.

Federal law dictates that as long as one member of the family is in the U.S. legally, the rest of the family can join them in public housing, even though the government only subsidizes the legal residents.

The Salazars fit the typical scenario -- parents here illegally, who have had children on American soil.

"It's deplorable, just deplorable," said Michelle Dallacroce, an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration. She said she is outraged that her tax dollars are being used this way

"There are waiting lists right now with American families trying to get into public housing and they are being turned away because illegal aliens are living in public housing," she said.

In Arizona there are 7,000 public housing units, and in Phoenix alone, HUD says there are almost 16,000 families on its waiting list. HUD said statewide 622 units are currently housing illegal immigrants, only 9 percent of its total.

Yet it only took CBS 5 News five minutes in one Phoenix project to find two families who fit the bill -- the Salazars, and even their next-door neighbors, illegal immigrants from Guatemala, with three American-born children.

"Where is INS?" Dallacroce said. "Where is our government? Where are they?"

Not one government agency CBS 5 News contacted would go on camera. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services declined and said it's not its job to be critical of other federal agencies. And even HUD would only issue a statement via e-mail, saying, "HUD only provides subsidy for individuals with legal status."
http://www.kpho.com/news/18451472/detai ... o&psp=news