Trump Blames Immigrant Surge for Housing Crisis. Most Economists Disagree.

The former president often implies that deportations will bring down housing costs. Reality is more complicated.

Former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, regularly blame America’s housing affordability crisis on a recent surge in immigration. They point to their plans for mass deportations of undocumented workers as part of the solution.

But most economists do not believe that immigrants have been a major driver of the recent run-up in housing prices. Rents and home costs started to surge in 2020 and 2021, before the flow of newcomers began to pick up in 2022 and 2023.

And while immigrants could have kept housing demand elevated in some markets, past studies suggest that they are a small part of the overall story. Even the economist whose paper Mr. Vance had cited as evidence said in an interview that she thought that immigration’s recent impact on housing costs had been minuscule.

In fact, a number of economists and housing industry experts said that one of the solutions Mr. Trump was proposing — large-scale deportations — could actually backfire and make the housing crisis worse.

That’s because immigrants do not simply add to the demand for housing: They are an important part of the work force that supplies it. Foreign-born workers make up a quarter of the construction labor force, and they are especially concentrated in trades like plastering, hanging drywall and roofing.

Across many booming housing markets, particularly in the South, the recent flow of migrants has helped residential builders meet demand for both skilled trades and relatively unskilled laborers, industry groups say and job market data suggest.