Department Of Homeland Security Claims Rent Prices Are Falling Because Of ICE Raids.
During President Donald Trump’s second term in office Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), operating under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has massively increased deportations of undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S.
The DHS is now claiming that this campaign is driving down rents nationwide.
“DHS is reducing your rent, especially in states that cooperate with @ICEgov. 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%, Austin 4.3%, Dallas and Houston about 3%.” the department’s account posted on X on Friday.
The DHS also linked falling average rental prices in Miami (2.6%), Phoenix (4.2%), Atlanta (3.2%), Nashville (5.3%) and New Orleans (8%) to its program of mass deportations.
This is not the first time the government has made such a claim about the relationship between rental prices and immigration policy.
In June, the White House published a press release declaring that “President Donald J Trump’s decisive enforcement of America’s immigration laws is producing real results for hardworking families – including the nation’s 46 million renters”.
The administration argued that “millions of new arrivals” from abroad drove up average rent prices significantly during the Biden administration, a trend the current government insists it has reversed.
However, national statistics point to a more complicated picture; data from an online real estate platform revealed that August 2026 marked the 37th consecutive month of rent decline for 0-2 bedroom properties across the 50 largest metropolitan areas of the U.S.
The price decline therefore began in 2023, during the tenure of previous President Joe Biden. Some experts have attributed such sustained improvement in the rental market to an enduring post-pandemic boom in the construction of multifamily housing units.
However, others have argued that the effect of government policies on migration to the U.S. has had a positive effect on house prices.
“To the extent that the Trump administration has reduced legal immigration, increased deportations and reduced the net inflow of people in the United States, maybe even turn it negative. That has had an effect of lowering rents and housing prices,” immigration policy analyst Alex Nowrasteh, who works for the libertarian think-tank The Cato Institute, told the Washington Times in February.
In 2025, the U.S. experienced net negative migration for the first time in 50 years.
According to the White House, the Trump administration has deported “605,000 illegal aliens, with an additional 1.9 million self-deporting, bringing the total number of illegals who have left the U.S. since President Trump returned to office to over 2.5 million”.
