The Washington Times
Arlington and Montgomery counties are the only local jurisdictions that do not check the immigration status of applicants for local housing subsidies, allowing illegal aliens to receive taxpayer-funded rent assistance.
Montgomery County spends about $3.7 million a year on rent assistance for 1,600 households, and Arlington County spends about $2.4 million a year on housing grants for 680 households.
Neither county verifies the immigration status of the head of household or of household members who get help in paying rent. Officials in the District and Fairfax, Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties said they check the immigration status of applicants for local housing-assistance programs. Montgomery County, however, relies on applicants to voluntarily disclose whether they are legal residents.
"If you say that you are a citizen, then we don't check," said Nancy Fink, who manages the rental-assistance program for the county's Department of Health and Human Services.
"If anything ever came to light, we will then go to them and ask them to provide [documentation]," she said. "We do everything possible to make sure that everything is on the up and up."
Arlington County does not screen applicants to see if they are in the country legally, said Susanne Eisner, deputy director of the county's Department of Human Services.
Of the estimated 7 million illegal aliens in the United States in 2000, about 103,000 lived in Virginia and 56,000 in Maryland, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).