Mass immigration has put a significant strain on America’s housing market, a new study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) details, adding to decades of evidence that supports the same conclusion.
The research report states that the nation’s “housing supply shortage … would not be nearly as severe were it not for consistently high immigration levels stressing America’s housing market to the breaking point.”
As noted in the report, the United States imports more than a million foreign nationals on green cards each year in addition to hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals who arrive on temporary work visas.
{snip} Altogether, these high levels of immigration drive up demand, and thus, home prices and monthly rents, the FAIR report concludes.
“Immigration, legal and illegal, is one of the most consequential factors affecting housing affordability because it directly generates significant housing demand in supply-constrained areas least able to handle an influx of people,” the report states:
The United States has by far the largest foreign-born population in the world, with mainstream estimates of foreign residents at well above 50 million (depending on the estimated size of the illegal alien population). The U.S. also takes in far more legal immigrants per year than any other country. Almost 1.4 million people gained lawful permanent resident status (green cards) in fiscal year (FY) 2024 alone, nearly 600,000 of whom were new arrivals from abroad. However, these legal immigrants only account for a small fraction of immigration’s total impact on the housing market. [Emphasis added]
…
Even during periods of relatively little illegal immigration, like the U.S. is currently experiencing thanks to the Trump administration’s stronger border policy, the consistent flow of legal immigration puts pressure on the housing market. As shown in Figure 3, new housing unit construction collapsed to around 400,000 annually in 2010 and only recovered to pre-Great Recession totals by 2020. However, there was no corresponding drop in immigration-driven demand for housing. In that same period, 11,400,820 green cards were issued (more than 1 million annually) and far more came in on long-term visas or illegally. These new arrivals alone were enough to occupy all new housing built in that period and contribute to the housing deficit that keeps prices at their current record highs. [Emphasis added]
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