More Americans Will Go Hungry and Homeless Without Immigrants
Trump's focus on immigration enforcement is causing prices to rise and projects to stall, triggering scarcity rather than abundance.
For years, the MAGA right has insisted that deporting undocumented workers would free up jobs, lower prices, and restore an imagined Leave It to Beaver-esque past where “real Americans” can thrive. They particularly hammer (no pun intended) the allegedly positive impact of fewer immigrants on the housing market. Vice President JD Vance claimed last week, “Illegal immigrants [are] taking houses that ought, by right, go to American citizens.”
But Trump’s mass deportation scheme actually works against the goal of making housing more affordable—because immigrants are a huge source of labor in the construction industry. Trump’s tariffs are raising the price of material inputs and his deportations labor inputs, jacking up housing prices.
The same is happening on farms that are so short-staffed that Trump’s own Department of Labor warns the nation’s food supply is at risk.
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