Matthew Casey/KJZZ

Joan Serviss, executive director of the Arizona Housing Coalition

A local affordable housing advocate is pushing back on a federal proposal that would force families with mixed immigration status out of subsidized housing.

The government’s plan would have big consequences for more than 750 Arizona families, according to the group's leader.

Federal officials have pitched a rule that would bar mixed status families from public housing, which includes undocumented immigrants with a child born in the U.S.

The Arizona Housing Coalition invited people opposed to the idea to its office on Friday to write postcards to Washington, D.C. Executive Director Joan Serviss said implementing the proposal would make kids born here seem like second-class citizens. 

“A family unit is a family unit,” she said. “Children that are eligible for that housing assistance, they’re not any less of a citizen than you or I.”

The government’s proposal would affect 767 mixed status families in Arizona, Serviss said. Phoenix Public Housing and the Maricopa County Housing Authority serve nearly half of them.