Jul 7, 2026
President Donald Trump has long argued that a sharp increase in illegal immigration during the Biden administration made American housing more expensive. He’s citing draft research from a pair of Federal Reserve economists as evidence.
On Sunday evening, the president posted on Truth Social: “Fed Reserve working paper suggests Biden illegal immigrant wave drove up home prices 30%.” White House social media accounts blasted out the paper as well.
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Since the 2024 campaign, Trump and his lieutenants have railed against then-President Joe Biden for allowing millions of migrants to cross into the U.S. from the southern border. According to the Congressional Budget Office, nearly seven million undocumented immigrants entered the U.S. from 2021 to 2024.
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The Trump administration blamed the spike in illegal immigration for helping to shrink the number of affordable homes available to Americans. “A major factor in driving up housing costs was the colossal border invasion,” Trump said in a December prime-time economic speech.
But, it’s not that simple.
The president’s fuzzy math
The working paper was authored by economists Daniel J. Wilson and Xiaoqing Zhou for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Among the paper’s biggest claims is that 30% of the rise in residential home prices in an average metropolitan area may be attributed to illegal immigration. The paper examined price growth from 2021 to 2024.
That’s a distinct argument from blaming illegal immigration for causing home prices to rise by 30% overall. Researchers estimated that housing prices rose by 6.3% and rents increased by 4.3% in the average metropolitan area. For housing, that can explain just under one-third of the increase.
Housing prices likely increased due to the arrival of millions of undocumented immigrants, but not at the scale Trump is touting. The authors found that home construction didn’t keep up with the new demand for housing in large cities.
Experts say that a lack of affordable housing long predates Trump’s second term.
“US population growth has never been lower. It is only because of supply constraints that population growth increases prices,” David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, wrote on X. “It isn’t immigration causing the price increase. It’s the short-run supply constraint, as the paper itself says.”
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White House economists recently estimated the U.S. was short ten million homes.
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Trump on housing
Congress recently passed a rare bipartisan housing package aimed to expand home ownership and incentivize local governments to build them faster. It also includes a ban on institutional investors from snapping up single-family homes.
However, Trump has refused to sign it so far, even though it enjoyed widespread support in his own party. He’s demanding simultaneous passage of the SAVE Act, a set of stiff voting restrictions mandating proof of citizenship in federal elections.
Housing and mortgages remain expensive, pricing many Americans out of home ownership. The Trump administration has responded by signing executive orders that would reduce red tape at the federal level for constructing new housing and making it easier for community banks to lend mortgages.
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Joseph Zeballos-Roig is a policy and politics journalist based in Washington D.C with a focus on economics. He is experienced in connecting the significance of events in the capital to the lives of everyday Americans whether its taxes, tariffs, interest rates or federal programs.
