Rents fall where deportations reduce the number of renters, but removing people from the demand side is only one piece of a much larger housing equation.
There is an uncomfortable truth many affordability-minded Democrats do not want to admit: in places where Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining and deporting illegal aliens, rents are falling. When fewer people compete for a limited supply of housing, prices respond. That is simple supply and demand and it deserves plain recognition, not political evasion.
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pointed to that basic economic reality while also warning against seeing deportations as a cure-all. Mass deportations can reduce pressure on prices, but they do not create new homes or fix broken local rules that stop construction. Treating deportations as the entire answer distracts from the real policy failures that made housing scarce in the first place.
“Communities when you get and you know we don’t know what it was 10 was it 15 was it 25 million illegals there’s no new housing stock so you know you saw rents go through the roof,” the Treasury Secretary said. “And now the people don’t want to admit it but there are academic studies that show where ICE goes rents go down that’s exactly right rents go down.”
It is plainly true that detaining and deporting illegal aliens lowers housing demand in the places where removals occur. People need somewhere to live, and fewer renters or buyers chasing the same stock of units will push prices down. Research across the last few years supports the idea that migration flows can meaningfully affect local housing markets.
https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2085430671296623031
One notable finding attributed to regional analysis is that the recent surge in unauthorized immigration accounted for roughly 30 percent of home-price growth from 2021 through 2024, which is said to translate to a 6.6 percent increase in home prices over that period. That number is significant even if it is smaller than some dramatic headlines suggested. The point is straightforward: immigration-driven demand moves prices, but it is not the whole story.
Border enforcement and deportations can blunt demand and slow price acceleration, yet they cannot create the housing supply that local governments blocked for decades. The core problem remains how cities and counties regulate land and construction. When zoning, permitting, and reviews inflate costs and delay projects for years, no amount of demand reduction will build the units needed.
The supply side is defined by exclusionary zoning, endless permitting and environmental reviews, restrictive land-use rules, and policies that boost demand without adding units, like certain rent subsidies. Those policies stack up to keep the housing ladder short and steep for working families. Fixing these barriers requires political courage at the local and state levels to let markets work and builders deliver units.
If you doubt that, look at Dallas. Despite having a sizable population that includes many unauthorized immigrants, housing in Dallas is substantially cheaper than in New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. The reason is not magical economics but regulatory policy: Texas has largely made it easier to build, which expands supply and keeps prices restrained even when demand rises.
We can support stronger border enforcement and mass deportations while still insisting those measures are not a substitute for supply-side reform. “Deport illegal aliens” is not, by itself, a serious ideological response to the socialist tidal wave washing over the country. Good conservative policy must pair immigration control with pro-growth housing reforms so Americans actually have a shot at affordable homes.
The practical alternative is a free-market approach that focuses on deregulation, expanded housing supply, private investment, and a government that stops making it harder to build. Those are policies that produce houses rather than slogans, and they align with principles of freedom, limited government, property rights, and common-sense economics. If conservatives want to win the affordability debate, they should push both tougher border control and bold supply-side reforms simultaneously.
