Millions of illegal immigrants flooded the U.S. housing market under Biden, and a new Federal Reserve paper confirms they drove nearly a third of the skyrocketing home prices crushing working Americans.
The cost of open borders isn’t just measured in border crossings or fentanyl—it’s measured in rent hikes and displaced families. A working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reveals that the unprecedented wave of roughly seven million illegal immigrants between 2021 and 2024 acted as a massive housing “demand shock.” Researchers found this influx accounted for approximately 30% of home-price growth and 20% of rent growth in the average metropolitan area during that time.
The math is brutal for anyone trying to buy a home or sign a lease. According to the paper, a 1% increase in illegal workers relative to a local labor force corresponded with a 2.2% jump in home prices and a 1.4% rise in rents. The researchers found virtually no evidence that homebuilding expanded to meet this added demand, meaning the existing housing supply was simply squeezed harder. When supply is tight and millions of new bodies need shelter, the cost of a roof goes up.
The press is already working overtime to spin the numbers. The New York Post reported the findings directly, noting the illegal immigration surge triggered the price hikes. Benzinga, however, scrambled to “deconstruct” the statistic after Donald Trump cited it on Truth Social. Benzinga framed the 30% figure as misleading, pointing out that the paper calculated unauthorized immigration contributed to an implied effect of roughly 6.6% on average home prices, rather than a flat 30% baseline increase. What Benzinga buried is that the 30% figure represents the sheer share of the market's price growth directly attributable to the border crisis. Whether you look at the share of the surge or the baseline jump, the reality is identical: mass migration made housing more expensive for citizens.
The Dallas Fed paper notes that this border boom boosted local employment nearly one-for-one without causing significant wage declines. That is a win for corporate America and the cheap-labor lobby, but a raw deal for the working class who now have to outbid the world's labor pool just to keep a roof over their heads. Both parties have long supported the mass immigration that keeps corporate profits high, but ordinary Americans are the ones paying the literal housing bill.
The researchers caution the paper is a preliminary draft. But for the working families living through this demand shock, the rent is still due at the first of the month. When will Washington stop forcing Americans to subsidize the global labor pool with their own neighborhoods?
