Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggests that President Donald Trump’s extensive deportation plan is contributing to a reduction in rental costs for Americans in the working and lower-middle classes.
Recent data indicates that apartment rents have decreased by 1.1 percent compared to the same month last year, and there is a notable 5.2 percent decline from 2022, when rental rates were at their highest.
In a conversation with Fox Business Channel, Bessent attributed the decline in rents to deportation efforts. He referred to a study from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, which highlights a significant link between immigration levels and housing prices.
“Rents are falling. This is a narrative the Biden administration prefers to avoid: the uncontrolled immigration surge that previously drove up rents, particularly impacting American workers,” Bessent remarked.
On the same day, Vice President JD Vance addressed an audience in Allentown, Pennsylvania, stating that the rise in housing costs and rents over the past four years can be attributed to former President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, which intensified competition for housing between Americans and new migrants.
Vance commented:
Also on Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance told a crowd in Allentown, Pennsylvania, that housing costs and rents skyrocketed over the prior four years because of former President Joe Biden’s mass migration agenda that forced Americans to compete for homes against newly arrived migrants.
Vance said:
I’m a little surprised by when the Democrats talk all the time about affordability. Democrats say, ‘You know, things aren’t affordable, this isn’t affordable, this has gotten more expensive, drugs have gotten more expensive, housing has gotten more expensive,’” Vance said.
And you know what, they’re right. And it was because of them. It ain’t that hard. If you go back to the four years of the Biden administration, why did housing get so expensive, double in price during the Biden administration? It’s because Joe Biden let in 20 million illegal immigrants who took homes that by right go to American citizens and to the people of this great state. [Emphasis added]
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner said the fact that housing prices surged as Biden imported millions of migrants to the United States shows “it’s not a coincidence, it’s a correlation.”
A HUD investigation published this month found that Biden’s importing of millions of migrants drove up prices for Americans who are low-income but who do not receive public assistance.
“One key cause of elevated worst-case needs is immigration. Between 2021 and 2024, the foreign-born population of the United States increased by more than 6 million—the largest such increase over such a short period in American history,” the HUD probe found.
“This immigration-driven increase in households has contributed to a significant increase in housing demand, thus driving up housing prices,” the HUD probe continues. “In fact, in some markets, immigration has accounted for nearly all of the increase in housing demand in recent years.”
