Trump officials keep blaming housing costs on one group: Immigrants. Economists disagree.

President Donald Trump promised Wednesday night that he’d bring down persistently high housing costs, which he said were caused by one group in particular: immigrants.

In a rapid-fire prime-time address to the nation, Trump said a “major factor” in driving up housing costs was the “colossal border invasion” during the Biden years. He said the previous administration and its allies in Congress “brought in millions and millions of migrants and gave them taxpayer-funded housing” while costs for others soared.

“For the first time in 50 years, we are now seeing reverse migration as migrants go back home, leaving more housing and more jobs for Americans,” he said, referring to the departure of foreign-born people through deportation or other means.

Trump’s administration is putting action behind his rhetoric, too, linking its policies designed to make homes more affordable to its restrictionist broader immigration agenda. The Department of Housing and Urban Development says immigrants drove all rental price growth in places such as California and New York. Vice President JD Vance, who said during last year’s presidential campaign that immigrants were harming the housing market, recently said tens of millions of undocumented immigrants were “taking houses” that were supposed to go to American citizens. Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, wrote on X that “no more illegal aliens = prioritizing affordable housing units for American citizens.”

And HUD suggested in a recent report that curbing housing demand — in other words, shrinking the population — might be more effective than pushes to build more homes.

But the administration’s sharp focus on immigrants contrasts with economists’ widely held view that the problem comes from housing shortages.

Many experts say decades of too-little construction, combined with the pandemic-era spike in prices, yanked rents and home prices well above what many Americans can afford. Lengthy permitting processes for new builds, steep building costs and a shrinking supply of affordable units have also contributed to a shortfall of 1.5 million to 4 million homes, according to economist estimates.

Immigrants need housing, just like others, and they may especially put some pressure on rental markets with higher migrant populations. But they also make up a large share of the construction workforce, which in turn is key to making more homes available.

Vincent Reina, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who focuses on urban economics and housing policy, said that “we have a housing supply problem. And that’s our problem, full stop.”

“Our country and growth of our cities are based on inflows of people, knowledge, capital, jobs and labor,” Reina said. “Our housing market should work. And the fact that it isn’t working has nothing to do with immigration. To home in on that is a really concerning misdiagnosis of the actual problem.”

The administration’s crackdown is seeping into all kinds of policies. Housing officials are trying to block undocumented immigrants from any kind of government housing assistance, and regulators are taking steps to keep those immigrants from getting government-backed mortgages. HUD also has an agreement to facilitate data-sharing with the Department of Homeland Security, which makes it easier to identify undocumented immigrants who live in subsidized housing.

Earlier this year, the Elon Musk-led U.S. DOGE Service mined federal data as it explored removing immigrants and mixed-status households from their homes, drawing from personal records normally protected from dissemination. (Undocumented immigrants have been allowed to live in public housing for years, including with family members with legal status. But they aren’t eligible for other kinds of direct housing assistance on their own.)

White House spokesman Davis Ingle said the Biden administration’s “border invasion” instigated America’s housing issues. He said that “removing illegal aliens from our country will free up the housing supply for American citizens, which will make it easier and more affordable for them to partake in the American dream of owning a home.”

HUD spokeswoman Kasey Lovett said: “It is fundamentally incorrect to assert that every part of our housing stock — from single family homes to rental units — has not been impacted by the Biden border crisis. American citizens should not have to be competing with illegals for housing, but HUD data clearly shows that is the case.”

Vance’s office did not respond to questions about linking immigration and housing policy, nor did the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

In January, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the United States accounting for 15.8% of the country’s population, according to the Pew Research Center. That was the highest percentage on record. But after that, more immigrants left the country or were deported than arrived. By June, the country’s foreign-born population had shrunk by more than 1 million people, its first decline since the 1960s, Pew’s analysis showed.

Yet housing experts say targeting undocumented immigrants may do little to bring down housing costs or free up homes. Many are less likely to have the means for a large down payment or the credit history for a mortgage. Undocumented immigrants typically live in lower-income rentals, live with friends or share a home with family members.

Still, immigration is core to the administration’s rhetoric on affordability and the economy. In what they have called an “affordability tour,” Trump and his allies are traveling around talking about the high cost of living, mindful that housing costs remain a top voter concern.

Housing costs have cooled considerably since the pandemic but are still a major strain to household budgets. November marked the 28th straight month of year-over-year rent declines for the United States’ 50 largest metro areas, data from Realtor.com showed. In the for-sale market, home prices showed a 1.3% annual gain for September, down slightly from a 1.4 rise in the previous month, according to the closely watched S&P Cotality Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index.

Those statistics rarely capture the struggles of poorer Americans with few affordable options, though. A routine HUD report, called Worst Case Housing Needs, focuses on those problems using data from the American Housing Survey, which HUD funds and the U.S. Census Bureau conducts. Most recently, it said that in 2023, only 59 affordable units were available per 100 very low-income renter households. Just 38 were available per 100 extremely low-income renter households.

But the report can also act as a kind of mirror for other administration priorities. The most recent version said immigrants were responsible for two-thirds of rental demand growth nationwide and that “housing policy leaders must be part of the immigration policymaking process.”

The administration also wants to encourage Americans to get married, have more babies and have more parents at home. HUD’s report said falling marriage rates are another reason demand is up, causing more people to live separately instead of coupling up. It suggested policymakers look for ways to increase marriage rates as a way of improving housing affordability.

But outside researchers say HUD’s figures — including that in certain markets, immigration accounted for nearly all of the increase in housing demand between 2021 and 2023 — are outsize and ignore myriad reasons people move around for jobs and other opportunities. Undocumented immigrants also aren’t the only ones moving around and looking for new homes. And they make up a large share of the construction workforce, which makes new home construction possible.

Asked for more information on the report’s methodology, HUD cited its analysis of the American Housing Survey.

• Jacob Bogage and Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.