Trump Says He Would Ban Mortgages for Undocumented Immigrants

Former President Donald Trump said he would ban undocumented immigrants from obtaining home mortgages, a move he indicated would help ease home prices even though these buyers account for a tiny fraction of U.S. home sales.

Home loans to undocumented people living in the U.S. are legal but they aren’t especially common.

Between 5,000 and 6,000 mortgages of this kind were issued last year, according to estimates from researchers at the Urban Institute in Washington.

Overall, lenders issued more than 3.4 million mortgages to all home purchasers in 2023, federal government data show.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, made his comments on Thursday during a policy speech to the Economic Club of New York in Manhattan.

Housing remains a top economic issue for voters during this presidential election.

Rent and home prices grew at historic rates during the pandemic and mortgage rates climbed to levels not seen in more than two decades.

A July Wall Street Journal poll showed that voters rank housing as their second-biggest inflation concern after groceries.

Both major candidates for the 2024 presidential election have made appeals to voters on housing during recent campaign stops, though the issue has so far featured more prominently in Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign.

Undocumented immigrants in the U.S. can obtain an obscure type of mortgage designed for taxpayers without Social Security numbers, most of whom are Hispanic.

The passage of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 allowed banks to use identification numbers from the Internal Revenue Service as an alternative to Social Security, extending a number of financial services to people without legal status for the first time.

Mortgage loans for undocumented immigrants are typically higher interest and borrowers include legal residents who have undocumented spouses, Acosta said.

Ref: Trump Says He Would Ban Mortgages for Undocumented Immigrants (realtor)