If you are not a US citizen,can you purchase a home in the US?

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/crcl/vol39_1/chandrasekhar.php#Heading252

Can New Americans Achieve the American Dream? Promoting Homeownership in Immigrant Communities

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Charu A. Chandrasekhar[*]

Introduction
Homeownership represents the attainment of the “American Dream” for many immigrants to the United States.[1] Immigrants in America typically pursue homeownership for its vast economic, cultural and psychological advantages.[2] The significant benefits of homeownership in America are well-established.

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Home equity often serves as the financial foundation for homeowners to build wealth.[3] Ownership of a home symbolizes the achievement of prosperity, stability and success.[4] Homeownership also demonstrably strengthens communities and society.[5]

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Immigrants now own a large share of the home equity in the United States. In 2001, approximately six million foreign-born homeowners were living in the United States, holding $876 billion in home equity.[6] This figure represents a substantial portion of the total $6.7 trillion in home equity held nationwide in 2001.[7]

As immigration to the United States has skyrocketed,[8] homeownership in immigrant communities has become a priority for institutions involved in the American real estate market, such as government agencies, banks, mortgage brokers, realtors, and nonprofits.[9] These institutions have started developing programs designed to help immigrants buy homes. Mortgage financing giant Fannie Mae, for example, is creating new mortgage products “designed to meet the unique needs of New Americans,”[10]

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while its chief competitor Freddie Mac has designed a home financing program called “Mortgage Solutions for Immigrant Families.”[11] The U.S. government has also begun to promote homeownership in immigrant communities.[12]

Although immigrants are buying homes in ever greater numbers, discrimination in the American real estate market remains significant. Much of this discrimination occurs in the area of mortgage lending. Simply defined, a mortgage is a loan to purchase a home.[13] As most homebuyers cannot afford to pay for homes entirely in cash, they take out home mortgage loans to finance their purchases.[14] Discrimination in the mortgage finance market, therefore, poses an obstacle to immigrant homeownership. Although legitimate mortgage lenders have provided millions of immigrants with the credit required to purchase homes, unscrupulous lenders frequently prey on immigrants, who often lack a sophisticated understanding of the market, by offering exploitative loan terms and conditions. Systemic discrimination prevents many immigrants from purchasing homes,

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thus undermining their ability to establish economic and social footholds in this country.[15]

This Note examines potential legal, legislative, and community advocacy strategies that immigrants can use to combat discrimination in the American mortgage finance market. Part I of this Note provides a factual overview of relevant immigration and housing trends in contemporary America. Part II examines the major obstacles faced by immigrants in the mortgage finance market. Part III considers legal remedies that immigrants can pursue in response to mortgage finance discrimination. Finally, Part IV discusses legislative and community advocacy strategies for improving access to mortgage finance in immigrant communities.

This Note is specifically concerned with discrimination on the basis of citizenship status. Given that immigrants constitute a diverse population, they may encounter several forms of discrimination, including discrimination based on race, national origin, sex and familial status. In contrast to discrimination on the basis of citizenship status, none of these forms of discrimination is uniquely experienced by immigrants. Unlike these other forms of discrimination, citizenship discrimination in the mortgage lending market is a relatively underexamined area of scholarship. This Note’s discussion of legal remedies, therefore, focuses on the ability of immigrants who are not U.S. citizens to utilize traditional legal remedies in fighting mortgage lending discrimination on the basis of citizenship status. Unfortunately, as this Note explains, few effective legal remedies exist to combat citizenship discrimination in the homeownership market. This Note therefore suggests that legislative and community advocacy strategies are the best tools to advance immigrants’ homeownership, given the difficulty that immigrants (particularly noncitizens) experience in harnessing the principal federal antidiscrimination statutes to oppose mortgage lending discrimination (particularly discrimination on the basis of citizenship).

A full discussion of pervasive institutional discrimination in the mortgage finance market, and of how it might be combated, would require a combined sociological, historical, and economic critique that is beyond the scope of this Note. Methods for redressing institutional inequality in the homeownership market (primarily through housing market and banking sector reform) have already been extensively explored in the

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legal, economic and sociological literature. Accordingly, this Note will focus on alleviating discrimination in the mortgage finance market endured by individual immigrants and promoting strategies that empower immigrant communities to overcome barriers to achieving homeownership.

This Note bases its analysis of homeownership in the immigrant population upon the U.S. government’s definition of “foreign-born” individuals, which includes immigrants, legal nonimmigrants (such as refugees and persons on student or work visas), and persons illegally residing inside the United States.[16] For purposes of simplicity in this Note, I use “immigrants” and “foreign born” interchangeably.

I. Homeownership Among American Immigrant Communities: Facts And Figures
A. Immigrant Populations in the United States
Immigration to America has soared over the past thirty years. Between 1970 and 2000, the American foreign-born population increased 191%, from 9.7 million to 28.4 million.[17] Within this total figure, the naturalized citizen foreign-born population grew 71%, from 6.2 million to 10.6 million, while the noncitizen population skyrocketed 401%, from 3.5 million to 17.8 million.[18] Twenty percent of the American population,

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or 55.9 million people, now hails from “foreign stock.”[19] In addition to the 28.4 million foreign-born individuals, 14.8 million people claim foreign parentage (American-born but with both parents foreign born) while 12.7 million people claim mixed parentage (one foreign-born parent).[20] This represents an increase of almost 70% from 1970’s total foreign stock of 33.6 million individuals.[21] The tremendous growth in the foreign-born population has greatly outpaced overall population growth in America: from 1970 to 2000, the total U.S. population grew from 203.2 million to 274.1 million, an increase of only 35%.[22] These figures demonstrate that the segment of the U.S. population facing discriminatory challenges unique to immigrants is potentially very large.

B. Homeownership Among Immigrant Populations in the United States
Immigrant homeownership in the United States lags behind national homeownership averages. In 2000, the foreign-born headed 11.6 million of the 104.7 million households in the United States.[23] Although the national homeownership rate among all households was 67.2% (70.4 million householders), homeownership among native-born households, at 69.5% (64.7 million householders), was significantly greater than homeownership among foreign-born households, which was at 48.8% (5.7 million householders).[24] Rates of homeownership within the foreign-born household population differed dramatically according to citizenship status. Among foreign-born households, homeownership rates were higher among households headed by naturalized citizens (66.5%) than among households headed by noncitizens (33.5%).[25] Length of residence in the United States interacts with citizenship status to predict homeownership

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rates among the foreign born. While only 22.6% of those foreign-born noncitizens who have lived in the United States for less than ten years own houses, the figure is 68.1% for those naturalized citizens who have lived in the United States for over ten years.[26] The data suggest that length of residence as well as citizenship status positively influence homeownership among the foreign born.[27] Homeownership is likely to boom among foreign-born populations as more foreign-born householders obtain the economic and cultural stability that accompanies increased length of American residence and the attainment of citizenship.[28]

The relative youth of the foreign-born population suggests that the demand for homeownership among immigrant communities will also increase. The median age of the foreign-born population declined from 57.2 years in 1960 to 38.1 years in 2000.[29] Simultaneously, homeownership rates among foreign-born households increased steadily with age: foreign-born householders younger than 35 had a homeownership rate of 25.8%, while foreign-born householders aged 35 to 64 had a homeownership rate of 55.8% and foreign-born householders 65 years or older had a homeownership rate of 67.4%.[30] These “aging effect” data suggest that home purchases will likely grow in number as the foreign-born population ages. Given that homeownership among foreign-born populations increases with the attainment of citizenship, length of residence, and age, homeownership