The city of Phoenix can t bar certain immigrants like asylum seekers and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients from receiving pandemic-related housing assistance through a federally funded program, a judge ruled today.
Last July, local immigrant advocacy groups Poder in Action and the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, as well as a Phoenix resident and a DACA recipient who was denied housing assistance, filed a lawsuit against the city of Phoenix in the U.S. District Court of Arizona alleging that the city illegally denied people without qualified immigration status from accessing assistance for housing costs like rent, mortgage payments, and utilities. The $25 million program, officially dubbed the Emergency Utility Rent and Mortgage Assistance Program, was funded through the $293 million that the city received from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that was passed last spring. It was designed to help Phoenix residents weather the economic fall