The housing shortage looms large as our nation faces a critical presidential election . Just last week, the National Association of Realtors released new data revealing home prices in the United States reached a record high in June 2024. It's no wonder, then, that housing costs are a top priority for young voters.
Unfortunately, some in Washington, D.C., continue to turn a blind eye to a key factor exacerbating this crisis: Mass illegal immigration.
Houses have been in short supply since the Great Recession, when housing production steadily declined, especially the construction of “affordable” apartments, which declined by 4.7 million units from 2015-2020. However, housing demand has only increased, driving up the cost of living.
As of 2024, the U.S. was short somewhere between 4 to 7 million housing units. The shortage of affordable and multifamily housing is especially severe, as multifamily construction has declined since 2021, dropping 14%. Considering that incomes have not kept pace with rising housing costs, these increased costs are especially harmful to lower-income families seeking multifamily units.
Additionally, rising production costs have disincentivized developers from building more multifamily units, worsening the problem.
Adding to this dire situation is the massive influx of illegal immigrants to the U.S. since 2021. According to a Center for Immigration Studies report, the foreign-born population has increased by 6.6 million since 2021, with 58% of this increase coming from illegal immigration. This massive population influx has increased the demand for housing, worsening the existing shortage.
While this matter has been largely ignored by both parties, former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick has led the way in addressing this underreported crisis. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) recently said, “It’s very hard to talk about the housing crisis in Ohio or across the country without talking about the immigration problem. When you let, let’s say, 10 million or 15 million people into the country illegally, those people all need homes.”
While population growth does raise the housing supply over time by providing more labor, new construction cannot keep pace with the increased demand caused by mass immigration. Indeed, some estimates suggest immigration may increase overall housing demand by around 500,000 units per year. As a result, housing costs and rents have seen additional increases in areas most affected by mass immigration, such as Miami and Denver, which have struggled to deal with massive influxes of migrants since 2021.
The role that immigration plays in worsening the housing crisis is especially evident in the market for multifamily housing. Forty percent of those apprehended at the southern border arrived in family units, and these families are initially housed in migrant shelters, which are often gyms or hotels. In New York City last year, two-thirds of migrants in shelters were members of family units.
When these migrants are eventually forced to leave these shelters, they often seek out affordable apartments, competing with low-income American citizens at the bottom of the housing market and raising rents for the poorest renters in the country. Such consequences reveal the injustice of mass immigration, which benefits migrants at the expense of struggling Americans.
It is true that other factors contribute to the existing housing shortage, including land-use regulation, zoning, and not-in-my-backyard attitudes, all of which make it difficult to build new housing, especially multifamily units. Nonetheless, it is simply impossible for housing construction to keep pace with the influx of millions of low-income family units pouring across the southern border.
As long as the Biden administration allows unchecked illegal immigration into the country, the housing shortage will worsen, and housing costs will rise.
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Eric Gordy is a student at Notre Dame University and an intern at the Center for Immigration Studies.
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