The US Department of Homeland Security has linked the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign to falling rents in several cities across the Sun Belt, although the department did not provide details showing that immigration enforcement was responsible for the declines.
In a post on X, DHS claimed that rents had dropped significantly in cities such as Austin, Nashville, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, particularly in states that have cooperated with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“DHS is reducing your rent, especially in states that cooperate with [the Immigration and Custom Enforcement] ICE,” the department wrote.
It added, “Texas accounted for about a quarter of ICE arrests in July and posted the country’s sharpest rent drops, with San Antonio down 4.8 percent, Austin 4.3 percent, Dallas and Houston about 3 percent. Miami’s average rent is down 2.6 percent. Phoenix is down 4.2 percent. Atlanta is down 3.2 percent. Nashville is down 5.3 percent. New Orleans is down 8 percent.”
However, DHS did not disclose the source or methodology used to arrive at the rental figures. The percentages cited also do not appear to align with figures from several major publicly available rental indexes.
The department referred to unspecified “research” which it said showed that “illegal-worker inflows push rents and home prices up,” arguing that the trend had been reversed in states where interior immigration enforcement had been intensified.
The research appears to refer to a working paper by Daniel J. Wilson of the San Francisco Federal Reserve and Xiaoqing Zhou of the Dallas Federal Reserve. The economists argued that increased illegal immigration during former President Joe Biden’s administration contributed significantly to rising housing costs.
However, housing experts and economists have challenged the study’s conclusions, raising concerns about aspects of its methodology, including its failure to account for domestic migration as a factor behind rising home prices.
Despite the criticism, DHS concluded its post by saying, “Want lower cost of living: support mass deportations.”
New Housing Supply Drives Rent Declines
While DHS presented a connection between cooperation with ICE and falling rents, the cities highlighted in its post have also experienced a substantial increase in apartment and multifamily construction.
Texas has been particularly active in adding new housing since the pandemic, following a major increase in domestic migration between 2020 and 2022.
Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio were among the Texas cities identified in an August 2025 RentCafe study examining metropolitan areas with significant numbers of new apartments.
Dallas was ranked second in the study, with 28,958 new units expected to be completed by the end of the year, while Austin ranked third with 26,715 units. Phoenix was fourth with 21,188 new units, followed by Atlanta with 17,512.
Miami ranked seventh with 15,666 units, while Nashville occupied 14th place with 9,810 new apartments. New Orleans did not make the top 20.
The large volume of new housing has increased competition among landlords, particularly as rental demand has weakened under the pressure of high prices and changes in workplace patterns.
Data from Zillow also showed year-over-year rent declines in several of the cities cited by DHS.
In Austin, the average rent stood at $1,990, down $10 from a year earlier. Dallas recorded an average of $1,950, a $45 decline, while Houston remained at $1,900.
San Antonio’s average rent was $1,600, representing an $80 year-over-year drop.
Miami’s average rent was $3,150, down $10, while Phoenix recorded $1,825, a $70 decline. Atlanta remained at $2,100, while Nashville fell to $2,200, down $50 from the previous year.
New Orleans recorded an average rent of $1,650, representing a $100 year-over-year decline, according to Zillow.
DHS did not provide figures showing how many renters had left these cities because of immigration enforcement, nor did it establish what proportion of the rent reductions could be attributed to deportations.
Rent reductions have also been recorded in other US cities that were not cited by DHS. Las Vegas, Nevada, had an average rent of $1,950, unchanged from the previous year, while San Diego, California, recorded an average of $3,100, down $8 year-over-year, according to Zillow.
Nationwide, rental prices have also been declining. Realtor.com reported that median asking rents for studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom properties across the 50 largest US metropolitan areas fell year-over-year for the 37th consecutive month in August.
The decline has been attributed to a combination of increased apartment supply and weaker rental demand, particularly in the South and West.
Debate Over Deportations And Housing Costs
Reducing housing costs through mass deportations was one of Donald Trump’s campaign promises in 2024, but housing experts have questioned whether the policy would produce the intended effect.
The White House said the Trump administration had deported more than 605,000 undocumented immigrants and that an additional 1.9 million had self-deported since January 2025.
From a housing perspective, Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather said earlier this year that large-scale deportations could “help free up some housing.”
However, she also warned that removing large numbers of undocumented workers could create problems for the construction industry, potentially offsetting any increase in available housing.
The US construction sector employs a significant number of undocumented immigrants. Reports based on US Census data and labour surveys cited by the American Business Immigration Coalition put the figure at nearly 1.6 million.
The Urban Institute reported that immigrants accounted for more than 23 per cent of construction workers in 2023 and estimated that about half of them were undocumented.
“Immigrants play a significant role in construction, and reducing labor supply tends to raise building costs and slow new home production,” Fairweather said.
Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale also warned that restricting immigration could make it “more difficult for companies to hire workers in the near-term, and that impact is likely to be acutely felt by a construction industry that employs many foreign-born workers.”
The National Association of Home Builders has similarly argued that a reduction in available workers could delay construction, increase labour costs and eventually put upward pressure on home prices.
A July 2025 Reuters investigation provided an example of the potential impact of immigration enforcement on construction projects.
The investigation reported that a $20m recreation centre project near Mobile, Alabama, which had been progressing according to schedule, faced an estimated three-week delay after an ICE raid in Florida.
According to the project’s superintendent, about half of the workforce stopped reporting for work because employees feared that similar raids could take place.
Reuters spoke with 14 people in the construction industry who described delays, additional costs and worsening labour shortages following increased immigration enforcement.
