Why an Open Border Means More Expensive Housing

COMMENTARY Housing

Why an Open Border Means More Expensive Housing

Jul 12, 2024 2 min read
COMMENTARY BY
EJ Antoni

Research Fellow, Grover M. Hermann Center

EJ Antoni is a Research Fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget.
Migrants cross into U.S. from Mexico through an abandoned railroad on June 28, 2024 in Jacumba Hot Springs, San Diego, California. Qian Weizhong / VCG / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

As millions of aliens entered the United States illegally over the last 3½ years, they significantly increased housing demand.

Anyone who thinks you can explode the demand for housing by 80% to 100% and not cause prices to go through the roof is delusional.

If Americans want their housing market to stabilize, the flood of illegal aliens across the southern border must cease.

Many Americans rightly blame the current housing affordability crisis on government for overspending and manipulating interest rates, which drove up prices and made borrowing prohibitively expensive.

But few understand the role the radical left’s open-border policies have played in raising home prices.

As millions of aliens entered the United States illegally over the last 3½ years, they significantly increased housing demand. That was especially true in places where state and local governments gave handouts—in addition to federal funds—to illegal aliens for monthly housing payments.

This dynamic in the housing market has even been recognized by Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. But you don’t need to be a Fed bank president to know that increasing the demand for housing will raise prices; it’s basic economics.

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Yet many on the radical left insist that illegal aliens have magically decreased the price of housing in the United States. This fictitious belief relies on the equally dubious assumption that illegal aliens have flooded into residential construction jobs, thereby greatly increasing the supply of homes.

But no empirical evidence has been presented to support the idea that illegal aliens, as opposed to legal immigrants, have surged into residential construction work—it’s a claim with no basis in fact.

How much have 10 million illegal aliens under the Biden administration contributed to greater housing demand and a doubling of the median monthly mortgage payment? To get a sense of the problem’s scope, consider that the millions of illegal aliens (that we know of) entering the country over the last 3½ years exceed the population of at least 40 states, including New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the union.

If all these illegal aliens were placed in a state such as Georgia, Michigan or North Carolina, the state’s population and housing demand would both roughly double. In a slightly larger state such as Pennsylvania, it would be about an 80% increase.

Anyone who thinks you can explode the demand for housing by 80% to 100% and not cause prices to go through the roof is delusional. For better or worse, every illegal alien has not been funneled into a single state, so the upward pressure on housing prices has been scattered across the country.

While that makes the effect less geographically acute, the nationwide impact is unchanged: illegal aliens are making housing more expensive for Americans. To add insult to injury, the radical left is using tax dollars to facilitate this atrocity. That means Americans are being forced to pay for the very thing that is helping drive up their own housing costs.

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This is just one effect of the radical left’s broader agenda that could best be described as “America Last.” Whether it’s the housing market, labor market or energy market, the liberal ruling class in this country continuously impose policies that impoverish Americans and benefit foreigners, including such enemies as Iran.

That’s not to say the U.S. economy should never benefit anyone not born here. Rather, American politicians should always be implementing policies that put Americans first. Likewise, the respective politicians in every country around the world should focus on improving the lives of their own citizens, first and foremost.

If Americans want their housing market to stabilize, the flood of illegal aliens across the southern border must cease. Once the bleeding is stanched, authorities can begin removing those who flouted America’s sovereignty.

Such steps are necessary to alleviate excess housing demand, and also to restore the rule of law in our country.

This piece originally appeared in The Washington Times

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