Immigration enforcement can push housing costs in opposite directions. Fewer residents may mean less housing demand, while fewer immigrant construction workers can mean fewer homes built or repaired. Which effect dominates depends on the place, the time frame and the type of housing cost being measured—not on a single nationwide rule.
How does immigration enforcement affect housing costs?
There are two main channels. When immigration slows or households leave, demand for rentals and homes may fall. But if enforcement removes or deters workers from construction jobs, builders may have less labor available, slowing projects or raising the cost of building. Those effects can happen together, and they do not necessarily move rents, existing-home prices and new construction in the same way.
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The timing differs, too. A change in the number of households looking for housing can affect occupancy and rents relatively quickly. Construction takes longer to respond: labor availability can influence projects in progress and the number of homes completed over time. Whether the demand reduction offsets the supply constraint depends in part on local vacancies, household size, building conditions and how easily a region can add housing.
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The affordability crisis predates any one immigration policy. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) counted 8.46 million renter households with worst-case housing needs in 2023, in its 2025 report. HUD defines these as very-low-income renters without government housing assistance who pay more than half their income for rent, live in severely inadequate housing, or both. The count measures hardship; it does not estimate how much of that hardship immigration caused.
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HUD also reported that in 2023 there were 59 affordable units for every 100 very-low-income renter households, and 38 for every 100 extremely-low-income renter households. Separately, HUD reported that the foreign-born population grew by more than 6 million between 2021 and 2024. That is population context—not a count of unauthorized immigrants, workers subject to removal or homes demanded.
How can immigration affect both demand and construction supply?
More households can add demand
New residents need places to live, so population growth can add pressure to rental and owner-occupied housing markets, particularly where it is difficult to build quickly. A 2026 working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, by Daniel J. Wilson and Xiaoqing Zhou, examined unauthorized immigrant worker flows during the immigration boom from early 2021 to early 2024 and the rapid slowdown beginning in mid-2024. In the places and period studied, it found higher local rents and house prices without an expansion in housing supply. That finding supports a demand effect under those conditions; it does not establish that immigration caused the underlying shortage or that the same effect applies everywhere.
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Fewer available workers can constrain building
Immigrants also make up a substantial part of the construction workforce. The Urban Institute estimated that immigrants accounted for more than 23% of construction workers in 2023 and that about half of immigrant construction workers were undocumented. These are the institute’s estimates, not a federal count of workers subject to removal.
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported in 2026 that foreign-born workers were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in construction occupations in 2024: 13.9% versus 7.7%. This compares the likelihood of working in construction for each group; it is not an estimate of the undocumented share of the workforce. CRS notes that declining immigration could contribute to construction labor shortages and affect residential construction.
What does the enforcement evidence show?
The clearest historical evidence in the sources discussed here concerns Secure Communities, an enforcement program rolled out during the Obama-era enforcement period. The Urban Institute summarizes research finding that the rollout was associated with lasting reductions in construction labor and homebuilding, along with rising home prices in affected places. This offers evidence for a supply-side mechanism in a defined historical episode. It is not a direct estimate of the effect of every current raid, detention or deportation policy.
The demand-side evidence measures a different episode and outcome. The Dallas Fed paper links unauthorized immigrant worker flows during 2021–2024 with higher local rents and house prices in the places studied, without expanded housing supply. It does not measure the combined effect of enforcement on construction workers and resident households. These findings are not necessarily contradictory: one examines demand associated with worker flows, while the historical enforcement research describes labor and homebuilding effects.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Would deportations make housing cheaper or harder to build?
They could reduce housing demand in some settings while also making homes harder or more expensive to build if construction labor availability falls. There is no basis in these findings for saying deportations necessarily lower—or raise—all housing prices nationwide.
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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteThe Congressional Research Service’s 2026 report, Housing Supply: Current Trends and Policy Considerations, captures the tension: “A complicating factor when it comes to immigration, as opposed to other policies that could increase supply, is that immigration also increases housing demand as immigrants require housing themselves.” In other words, reducing one source of demand is not the same as increasing the supply of homes; enforcement can affect both sides of the market.
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How to judge claims about immigration and housing
- Check the geography: A result from particular counties or metropolitan areas is not automatically a national result.
- Check the time horizon: Household demand may shift sooner than construction output, which can respond with a lag.
- Check the outcome: Rents, existing-home prices, new-construction costs, housing starts and completed units are different measures.
- Check the population definition: “Foreign-born” includes people with many legal statuses; it is not interchangeable with “immigrant,” “unauthorized resident” or “unauthorized worker.”
- Check what the study can establish: A relationship in a specific place and period does not show that immigration or enforcement alone caused the broader shortage.
What the evidence supports
Immigration can add housing demand, and immigrant workers contribute to the capacity to build and repair housing. Research describes demand-related price increases in a studied episode and links a historical enforcement rollout with reduced construction labor and homebuilding in affected places. Those findings show why enforcement can collide with housing affordability; they do not establish one inevitable price outcome for every market or current policy.
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