There is an uncomfortable truth many affordability-minded Democrats do not want to admit: in places where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is detaining and deporting illegal aliens, rents are falling. When fewer people compete for a limited supply of housing, prices come down. That is simple supply and demand.
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pointed to that simple economic reality. But it is important to remember that mass deportations are not the entire answer, and believing that they can, in some ways, clouds the real issue at hand: the poor governance of politicians who have spent decades restricting housing supply. Deportations may lower demand, but they do not excuse or solve the problems created by politicians who made it nearly impossible to build enough housing in the first place.
🚨 JUST IN: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent just dropped a truth nuke OF THE AGES
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 6, 2026
"People don't want to admit it: where ICE goes, RENTS GO DOWN."
"Was it 10, 15, 25 million illegals? There's NO new housing stock. So you saw rents go through the roof."
Mass deportations solve… pic.twitter.com/2huFRuWyRq
"Communities when you get and you know we don't know what it was 10 was it 15 was it 25 million illegals there's no new housing stock so you know you saw rents go through the roof," the Treasury Secretary said. "And now the people don't want to admit it but there are academic studies that show where ICE goes rents go down that's exactly right rents go down."
It is plainly true that detaining and deporting illegal aliens reduces demand for housing. People need somewhere to live; this is not a difficult economic concept. Analysis by the Dallas Fed found that the surge in unauthorized immigration accounted for roughly 30 percent of home-price growth from 2021 through 2024, which translates to a 6.6 percent increase in home prices, not the 30 percent across-the-board price hike breathlessly repeated in some coverage. That is still a substantial number, and anyone pretending otherwise is not engaging in analysis. But border enforcement and mass deportation are less than half the answer.
They can reduce demand and slow the rise in housing costs. They cannot magically produce homes that local governments spent decades preventing Americans from building. That requires confronting the actual supply problem: exclusionary zoning, endless permitting and environmental reviews, land-use restrictions, rent subsidies that boost demand without adding units, and the years-long lag between approving construction and opening the front door.
If you don't believe that, just look at the city of Dallas. It is a large Texas city with a substantial illegal alien population, and yet housing remains markedly cheaper than in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the other coastal citadels where officials act mystified that a three-bedroom house costs the same as a small yacht. Why? Because Texas has generally made it easier to build.
That is where the real solutions lie, and it must remain at the center of the affordability debate. We can support mass deportations without pretending they are the primary answer to every economic problem. “Deport illegal aliens” is not, by itself, a serious ideological response to the socialist tidal wave washing over the country.
The proper alternative, the one that presents a genuinely compelling vision for the country, is the free market: deregulation, expanded housing supply, private investment, and a government that stops making it harder to build. It is the practical answer to the housing crisis, but it is also one rooted in the principles of freedom, limited government, property rights, and the founding principles of the country.
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