Mass Immigration Makes Housing Prices Soar

In an ironic twist, July 4th saw anti-immigration protests in Mexico City, where local residents rioted and defaced buildings over the weekend. As described in a New York Times article titled “As a Tourist Influx Makes Prices Soar, Hundreds Protest in Mexico City,” this public outrage reflects the growing difficulty of affording housing in a city that has become a hot spot for immigrants from the United States and Europe.

In response to the protest, Mexico City’s government secretary, César Cravioto, urged an end to marches with “xenophobic” messages, saying Mexico City “is a city of migrants” and that the city’s government does not agree with “this type of demonstration.” President Claudia Sheinbaum added that “xenophobic displays of this kind must be condemned” and that “Mexico is a country open to the world.”

This familiar dynamic has played out in many countries across the world. High immigration rates have spiked housing costs, and political elites have responded to the subsequent social unrest with globalist language defending permissive immigration policies. Examples where this has happened include Australia, Canada, Germany, and of course the United States.

Immigration Strains America’s Housing Affordability

In 2023, while President Biden was waving in millions of new migrants, Axios reported that the surge of newcomers was making the U.S. housing crisis worse, noting that “cities simply don’t have enough affordable homes, enough shelters, or enough money to help everyone who needs it, straining scarce resources and leaving thousands of people out on the street.”

Even before this migrant rush, the U.S. was already behind on the demand for affordable apartments, with the total number declining by 4.7 million from 2015 to 2020, according to a report from the National Multifamily Housing Council. The report found that immigration is a significant driver of apartment demand, with rents for apartments climbing to all-time highs in cities with large numbers of immigrants.

The recent massive increase in illegal immigrants (7.3 million in 2022-2024) is one more reason why younger U.S. workers are losing hope of ever buying a home. According to the New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations, the share of renters who expect to own a home recently dropped to 40.1 percent, the lowest since the annual survey was launched in 2014.

In addition to increasing housing costs, mass immigration also is a major contributor of urban sprawl. Between 2002 and 2017, the federal government identified 17,800 square miles of farmland and open space lost to new development, driven primarily by population growth. Back in 2017, the Urban Institute found that while inflows of immigrants caused a significant increase in home prices and rents in big cities, the areas surrounding those cities experienced even more cost inflation. This drives both densification within our cities and sprawling growth at their boundaries. These negative trends will persist as long as U.S. immigration rates remain high.

Excessive Immigration is an International Problem

Governments around the world should serve their own citizens, rather than tailor immigration policies to benefit real estate interests or employers looking to exploit cheap labor. In Mexico’s case, we see that global market pressures can cut both ways. They hurt poorer residents of Mexico when too many wealthy Americans and Europeans rent or purchase homes there, while cheap Mexican labor drives down wages for blue-collar workers in the United States. From Australia to Canada to Europe, citizens are fighting back to reduce immigration to reasonable levels.

Rather than just bear witness to mass immigration’s negative consequences, NumbersUSA is promoting immigration policies to humanely reduce immigration — our six great solutions. Two key bills are the Nuclear Family Priority Act (H.R.2705 / S.1328) which limits immigration to immediate family members, and the Accountability Through Electronic Verification Act (S.1151) / Legal Workforce Act (H.R. 251), which mandates use of the federal E-Verify system for all new hires.

Visit our Action Board to ask your Congressional Representatives to support this important legislation. And to learn how your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative have voted in recent years on immigration, see our recently revised Congressional Grade Cards.