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Housing:The Showdown Over Segregation in Suburbia
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Housing

Trump Scrapped Two Fair Housing Rules; Biden Is Bringing Them Back

The pair of Obama-era rules barring discrimination were suspended late in the Trump administration, as part of the ex-president’s campaign to dismantle fair housing regulations. 

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge speaks during a press briefing in March. 

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge speaks during a press briefing in March. 

Photographer: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

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Late in his campaign for re-election, former President Donald Trump warned that Democrats would seek to “abolish the suburbs” if they returned to power. As part of that attempted appeal to suburban voters, Trump gutted two federal rules that bar discrimination in housing, a push that one analyst described as “an attack on fair housing from all sides.”

A week after taking office, President Joe Biden pledged to eliminate barriers at the federal level to equitable housing, ordering his housing secretary to review those decisions. Now the Biden administration is making good on this promise by restoring the rules scrapped by Trump.