Department of Homeland Security officials have claimed that surging deportations have caused rent prices to fall, and some economists agree with the assessment.
The federal department handling President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation recently declared rent reductions in major cities nationwide to be the result of fewer people living in the country.
“DHS is reducing your rent, especially in states that cooperate with @ICEgov,” the DHS wrote in a post to X with roughly six weeks until the midterm elections. “Research shows that illegal-worker inflows push rents and home prices up. That inflow has been reversed in the states running the hardest interior enforcement. Want lower cost of living: support mass deportations.”
The DHS has touted 2 million voluntary departures by illegal immigrants since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025. In addition, 1 million additional illegal immigrants have been removed from the country by Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel. The dropping population leads to more housing availability and, in turn, a higher supply than demand, which has caused prices to drop.
Roughly a quarter of ICE arrests nationwide have taken place in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has allowed state and local law enforcement to assist federal immigration authorities. Rent in San Antonio was down 4.8%, while just north in Austin, prices dropped 4.3%. Dallas and Houston each reported 3% reductions in rent.
Rent prices dropped 2.6% in Miami; 3.2% in Atlanta; 4.2% in Phoenix; 5.3% in Nashville, Tennessee; and 8% in New Orleans, although the department did not cite the source of the data.
John Gibbs, the director of the Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, listed half a dozen studies that supported the Trump administration’s claim.
“The recent collapse in net immigration, in part due to increased enforcement, has almost certainly reduced housing demand and lowered rents relative to what they otherwise would have been,” Gibbs said in a statement. “Immigration materially contributed to the run-up in housing costs between both in 2021 and 2024 and prior, and the subsequent immigration reversal is contributing to rent relief, particularly in high-immigration markets.”
One such study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that a 1% increase in illegal immigrant workers led to a 1.4% increase in rent and 2.2% increase in house prices.
The historic border crisis during the Biden administration resulted in approximately 5 million noncitizens being released into the country. The same study stated that the border crisis accounted for “roughly 20% of rent growth and 30% of house-price growth during that period.”
Daniel Di Martino, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute who earned his doctorate in economics from Columbia University, said population increases have positive and negative impacts.
“The majority of Americans who are homeowners benefit from immigration because their home price goes up while poorer and younger renters face a higher cost of living because of it,” Di Martino wrote in a message. “In fact, while the economic impact of immigrants on the labor market is very small, it is much greater in the housing market. Housing costs are falling in illegal immigrant heavy areas because of deportations. The losers are the homeowners in those areas, the winners are those who want to live there.”
Not all were convinced. Immigration attorney Charles Kuck attributed the decline in rental prices to nothing more than the effect of a “recession,” as inflation has continued to affect the cost of goods since President Donald Trump took office.
David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based libertarian think tank, suggested that immigrants brought economic benefits to the communities in which they reside.
“Immigrants increase entrepreneurship, jobs, investment, and net tax revenues, while lowering crime rates,” Bier wrote in an email. “There’s no way that they can’t increase the value of real estate in the areas that they go compared to other areas.”
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Cities can do more to make housing more affordable and accessible, Bier added.
“Let more homes be [built],” Bier said. “That’s why home prices in—for example—Austin were falling long before the deportation campaign began.”
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
