DHS Secretary Says Immigration Enforcement Is Lowering Rents, Citing Six Percent Drop

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said this week that enforcement of federal immigration law is helping bring down rents and home prices in communities where agents have operated, tying housing affordability to the administration’s broader immigration crackdown.

Mullin made the comments in Washington, D.C., during an event hosted by Breitbart News, in an interview with the outlet’s Washington Bureau Chief Matt Boyle.

“When you allow that many people to come in, it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the housing prices,” Mullin said. “So when we go into areas, and we do immigration enforcement, when we leave, we see the average rent drop by about six percent. You’ve got to have national security and affordability at the same time.”

The remarks come as the Trump administration continues to argue that reducing immigration levels will ease cost-of-living pressures for Americans, a message officials have pushed ahead of the midterm elections.

Separately, Business Insider reported this week that home prices are falling in a number of U.S. cities, including those in Texas, Florida, Minnesota, Oregon and Colorado, as housing inventory builds up and mortgage interest rates remain above seven percent.

Research on immigration and housing costs

Mullin’s comments follow a string of studies examining how immigration levels affected housing markets during the Biden administration. A recent report from the Brookings Institution, a left-leaning think tank, found that the large increase in migration under President Joe Biden “caused rents to rise by 1.4 to 1.6 percent” while also reducing average wages by as much as 1.5 percent.

In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported that immigration contributed to rising housing prices from early 2021 through early 2024, concluding that population growth from migration pushed up costs.

A Department of Housing and Urban Development investigation published last year found that the increase in migrants admitted under the Biden administration drove up prices for low-income Americans who do not receive public housing assistance.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also said that what he has described as mass, unfettered immigration under the Biden administration “pushed up rents, especially for working Americans.”