-Caveat Lector-
Homes for illegals guaranteed by the taxpayers! - JR
townhall.com Home loans for
illegal aliens?! August 29, 2003
The American dream of home ownership, complete with the white picket fence,
is alive and well for those who break our laws and break down our fences to get
in. Last week, The Washington Post published a rosy front-page tale headlined,
"Illegal Immigrants Buy Into Homeowning Dream." The article detailed how illegal
aliens in the Washington, D.C., area are successfully hooking up with cunning
mortgage brokers and complicit lenders to secure home loans. Despite federal
laws making it illegal to violate the borders, overstay visas, and recruit,
harbor and encourage illegal aliens, the Post notes that the illegal alien home
loan schemes are "legal." Here we are, nearly two years after the September 11 terrorist attacks
underscored the need for consistent immigration law enforcement, and the lesson
continues to be ignored in the nation's capital. The Post's heart-warming story began: "Gerardo Cabrera fell in love with the house immediately. There was the bay
window in the living room, the fireplace in the den, and -- most enchanting to
a man raised amid the concrete of Mexico City -- the woods in the back yard.
And so the auto mechanic and his wife, a secretary, decided to pay $200,000
for their own piece of suburban Gaithersburg, a classic tale of immigrants
achieving the American dream. Except for one detail: At the time, they were in
the United States illegally." While law-abiding homebuyers must supply airtight proof of identity, legal
residence and a Social Security number to lenders, illegal alien purchasers such
as Cabrera (a visa overstayer who recently received a green card) need only
supply a "taxpayer identification number" (TIN) issued by the Internal Revenue
Service. No criminal background check is required before applying for a TIN,
which many banks now accept from illegal alien customers as a primary form of
identification. Cabrera's broker, Alma Preciado of Metropolitan Financial Services in Silver
Spring, told the Post that about 10 percent of her mainly Latino clientele
qualify for home loans using a TIN instead of a Social Security number. That's just the tip of the illegal alien homeowners' iceberg. The Post failed
to note that Federal Housing Administration-approved loans through the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development do not require lenders to obtain
proof of citizenship or legal permanent residence. These FHA/HUD programs,
primarily targeting minorities and first-time homebuyers, are federally insured
and require minimal down payments. A 25-year veteran of the mortgage industry in California confided to me
recently: "It boggles the mind to think how many illegal aliens are homeowners
in this country thanks to these programs, all fully insured by our government.
Because of fear of lawsuits for discrimination I can also tell you that a lender
may have a borrower who speaks little or no English who claims to be either a
citizen or resident alien and it will not be questioned nor any proof required.
Since FHA does not require any such documentation, a lender cannot cite their
regulations as a basis for the request as they can on conventional loans." Another easy avenue to home ownership is through the use of bogus Social
Security cards. Moneylenders have no access to a verification system to check
Social Security numbers before approving loans. A Department of Homeland
Security investigator informs me that an ongoing federal probe of FHA/HUD-backed
loans found that "a staggering number were approved to persons with false Social
Security numbers." The Denver metro area alone accounted for 20,000 to 40,000 of
the FHA-approved loans for suspected illegal aliens. "Even if a small percentage
of the loans were foreclosed, HUD could be bankrupted," the homeland security
official said. A spokeswoman for the U.S. General Accounting Office told me this week that
the agency's office of special investigations plans to report on the results of
the probe later this fall. But "considering the size of Los Angeles, New York,
Chicago, Houston, and other large cities throughout the United States known to
be inundated with illegal aliens," says my source, "I don't think the federal
government is willing to expose this problem for financial reasons as well as
for fear of political repercussions." America: Still the world's home sweet illegal alien home.
©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Contact Michelle Malkin | Read Malkin's biography townhall.com
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- [CTRL] Homes in Mexico Jim Rarey
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