The American Dream of homeownership is slipping away from working families, and a comprehensive new study reveals the uncomfortable truth behind skyrocketing housing costs: decades of mass immigration have pushed our housing market to an unprecedented breaking point.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform’s latest analysis exposes what millions of Americans already know from their own experiences—finding affordable housing has become nearly impossible in communities across the nation. With over 1.4 million green cards issued in fiscal year 2024 alone, the relentless demand from new arrivals is overwhelming America’s housing supply faster than builders can respond.
The numbers tell a stark story. Research demonstrates that a mere 5-percentage-point increase in recent immigrant population correlates with rent increases of 12% for American-born households. For families already struggling with inflation and stagnant wages, these additional housing pressures represent the difference between financial stability and crisis.
Consider the mathematics of displacement: America currently houses over 50 million foreign-born residents, all competing for the same limited housing stock that American families desperately need. Even during periods of reduced illegal immigration, legal immigration alone—exceeding one million annually—has absorbed virtually all new housing construction since 2010. This creates the fundamental supply deficit driving today’s record-breaking home prices and rental costs.
Miami provides a particularly sobering case study. The current administration’s immigration policies have effectively released at least one additional person for every 50 existing Miami residents into local housing markets. The predictable result? A city where working families can no longer afford to live in the communities they’ve called home for generations.
This housing crisis isn’t a natural disaster or inevitable economic phenomenon—it’s the direct result of policy choices that prioritize global labor mobility over American families’ economic security. For decades, both parties have treated immigration as an abstract humanitarian issue while ignoring its concrete impact on citizens’ daily lives.
The Constitution’s Preamble speaks clearly about promoting the “general Welfare” of Americans, not the global population. Our founders understood that a nation’s first obligation is to its own citizens, particularly when it comes to economic opportunity and prosperity. Today’s housing data validates this constitutional wisdom with mathematical precision.
The globalist approach to immigration has created what economists call a “labor arbitrage” system—importing workers to suppress wages while simultaneously inflating housing costs through increased demand. American families face the worst of both worlds: reduced earning power and higher living expenses. Meanwhile, corporate interests benefit from cheaper labor and inflated real estate values.
This economic squeeze explains why homeownership rates have stagnated despite historically low interest rates in recent years. When immigration policy floods housing markets with new demand while suppressing the wages Americans need to compete, the predictable result is a generation priced out of homeownership entirely.
The solution requires returning to immigration policies that serve American interests first. Merit-based immigration systems, like those successfully implemented by Canada and Australia, ensure that newcomers contribute to economic growth rather than competing directly with struggling American families for basic necessities like housing.
Smart immigration reform would calibrate annual admission numbers to housing construction rates, labor market conditions, and infrastructure capacity. This isn’t about closing America’s doors—it’s about opening them in ways that strengthen rather than strain American communities.
The housing data provides patriots with powerful ammunition for upcoming policy debates. Economic evidence increasingly supports the America First approach to immigration, demonstrating how putting citizens first creates prosperity for everyone.
American families deserve immigration policies that help them achieve the American Dream rather than making it unattainable. With housing costs consuming ever-larger portions of household budgets, the time has come to restore immigration levels that serve American workers, strengthen American communities, and rebuild the pathway to middle-class prosperity that made our nation the envy of the world.
The choice is clear: continue failed globalist policies that impoverish American families, or return to constitutional governance that puts citizens first.
