In Play For White Voters, Trump Threatens To End Obama-Era Suburban Desegregation Program

On Twitter Tuesday, President Donald Trump attacked an Obama-era program, which aims to eliminate racial disparities in suburban communities, threatening to terminate the regulations entirely.

Trump went after the 2015 initiative, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), on Twitter. 

The president wrote, “At the request of many great Americans who live in the Suburbs, and others, I am studying the AFFH housing regulation that is having a devastating impact on these once thriving Suburban areas. Corrupt Joe Biden wants to make them MUCH WORSE. Not fair to homeowners, I may END!”

The Obama-era regulation seeks to ensure that localities receiving funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) complete a 92-item questionnaire. The administration of the survey addresses patterns of racial segregation in communities. HUD has refused to fund those jurisdictions that do not comply. The initiative also encompasses many other detailed corrective plans for achieving racial equality throughout American suburbs.

Patterns of racial segregation were outlawed with the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Trump’s critics have said that his move was an attempt at stoking voter support from white suburbanites, a group that has been drifting away from him in recent months.