No, Whitmer is not subsidizing 'illegal aliens' in Michigan as Trump claims
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday attacked Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's program to provide up to $500 a month in temporary rental subsidies to help house immigrants and refugees, falsely claiming it's available to "anyone who accepts illegal aliens" into their homes and again suggesting without evidence that many immigrants are terrorists or came to the U.S. from mental institutions or prisons.
Trump's comments — which he aired in a 2-minute, 43-second tirade on the Truth Social platform he founded — echoed many of the false or exaggerated claims he made during a campaign trip to Grand Rapids earlier this month when he railed against huge numbers of immigrants entering the U.S. across the southern border in recent months.
They also came as state House Minority Leader Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, asked Michigan's auditor general to review the program, also falsely asserting that the Whitmer administration was "offering to pay the rent of illegal aliens who got caught in the country and then claimed asylum to delay deportation."
The Office of Global Michigan, which administers the Newcomer Rental Subsidy Program and is part of the state's Department of Labor & Economic Opportunity, provided information and data to the Free Press on Thursday explaining that the subsidies — which are limited to between $300 and $500 a month and can last no longer than 12 months — are not available to anyone in the country illegally or immigrants caught attempting to enter the country without documentation and filing what are known as "defensive" asylum claims to delay removal.
The Newcomer Rental Subsidy Program is also part of longstanding efforts, including those that went on during Trump's term in office, to provide housing and other aid to refugees welcomed into the country from around the world each year, including those fleeing wars and famine. "Many refugees and other newcomers face critical housing challenges, and this program will increase access to better and more affordable housing opportunities while supporting a more rapid social integration to refugees and other newcomer populations to Michigan," the program's website says.
The program, which provides subsidies to landlords and has helped to house some 1,200 immigrants and refugees since October of last year, also requires that people work or be looking for work and meet certain income levels to be eligible. Immigrants filing defensive asylum claims and awaiting court hearings on their status are not provided work permits or other documentation that would allow them to be eligible, the agency said.
The other documentation required to be eligible includes immigration court orders, refugee authorizations, visas, green cards or proof of an "affirmative" asylum claim, which are filed by immigrants already present in the U.S. and not in removal proceedings. The vast majority of asylum claims — in which immigrants claim fear of persecution or torture if they are removed to their home countries — in recent years have been defensive claims. Records kept by TRAC, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, indicated that in recent years affirmative claims are most often granted while defensive claims are denied more often than not.
The state said under the program, immigration status, along with income levels and employment status, is reviewed and verified for the beneficiaries every three months. And while Hall claimed in a news release that an immigrant in the country illegally might use an "alternate identification document" to qualify, that runs counter to the program's clearly stated requirement that valid immigration documents must be submitted as well.
In a video posted on Truth Social, Trump excoriated Whitmer, calling her a "radical, left Democrat," saying she "is handing out $500 a month is cash to anyone who accepts illegal aliens into your homes."
"She's calling the scam the Newcomer Rental Subsidy," Trump said. "In other words, she's calling illegal immigrants — many coming from jails, many coming from mental institutions, many are terrorists — she's calling them newcomers, isn't that wonderful? And it's all funded by federal taxpayer dollars... (President Joe) Biden and Whitmer are selecting and stealing your money to give free housing to illegal alien migrants and then asking you to quarter these foreign armies. And that's what they are, they're armies."
As the Free Press and other media outlets have pointed out previously, there is no evidence — and the Trump campaign has provided none, despite the Free Press' request — that a substantial number of immigrants coming to the U.S. are from prisons or mental institutions or are terrorists. It also harkens back to Trump's 2016 campaign when he remarked that Mexican immigrants were, in many cases, drug users or rapists. Studies have also shown immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.
Trump's other claims also ring hollow and appear aimed largely at rousing anti-immigrant fervor ahead of this year's presidential election, with Michigan expected to be a key swing state: While the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement has provided $5 million for the newcomer rental subsidies, that funding is restricted to subsidies for housing for Ukrainian and Afghan refugees. Another $4 million, provided by the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) can be used for immigrants from other countries.
Trump said if he wins the election he will end the program "on day 1," though it's unclear how he would do so, since it's funded in large measure by state funds. He also said he plans to order "the largest and most efficient deportation effort in the history of our country."
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler. Staff writers Arpan Lobo, Clara Hendrickson and Paul Egan contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump's attack on Whitmer's migrant housing subsidies largely false
