The cost of rent is dropping, and the Trump administration is taking credit for it, citing immigration policies that have halted the flood of illegal immigrants and forced out millions of people living in the United States illegally.
The latest data has been encouraging for renters, and, while Mr. Trump’s mass deportations are only part of the equation, experts say it is a factor.
Monthly rents fell to their lowest level since 2022 and posted the sixth straight monthly decline in January, with the largest annual drop in more than two years and a 6.2% drop from 2022.
Trump administration officials say it is obvious that slashing the population by millions of illegal immigrants will lessen the demand for housing and make it more affordable.
“If you have fewer people, fewer illegal aliens trying to buy homes, that means American citizens are finally going to be able to afford a home again,” Vice President J.D. Vance said in a speech in Allentown, Pennsylvania. “It’s very, very simple economics.”
In Jacksonville, Florida, February rental prices declined 4.2% from last year’s rates. Rents fell 6.6% in Austin, Texas and by nearly 3% in Houston. Denver saw decreases in rent of nearly 5% from last year, while Phoenix experienced a 4% drop.
Real estate experts and economists say the drop in rent in these cities and others is caused by several factors, including hundreds of thousands of newly built apartment buildings that have hit the market, causing an oversupply.
They also point to a drop in demand, and part of it is potentially due to President Trump’s deportations and other policies that are reducing both legal and illegal immigration.
“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,” CATO Institute Economist Alex Nowrasteh said.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said last month that nearly 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. “because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.” The numbers include an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations and more than 675,000 deportations by border patrol officials. Illegal immigration into the United States is at a 55-year low following aggressive deterrence, including restarting construction of the border wall.
The housing vacancies due to Mr. Trump’s immigration policies are influencing the rental market in Houston, Texas, said Itziar Aguirre, senior director of market analytics for CoStar, a residential and commercial real estate data firm.
It’s mostly impacting rentals that attract lower-income individuals and families.
Ms. Agiurre said landlords are coping with suddenly empty apartments that were once rented by people who came to the United States illegally.
“People are leaving in the middle of the night. They’re scared,” Ms. Aguirre said landlords are reporting. “It’s definitely become an issue.”
The sudden vacancies, she said, have translated into concessions that benefit low-income renters in the Houston area.
In the past year, rent has fallen by 1.8%, which averages out to $21 less per month, according to the rental site Apartments.com.
Not only are residents paying lower rents, but landlords are offering significant incentives.
“Now we’re seeing even four and six weeks of free rent in certain very cheap properties, because they’ve seen their occupancies drop so much over the last year,” she said. “It’s definitely impacting. For sure.”
In Jacksonville, 67% of landlords of multifamily units said the Trump administration’s immigration policies made it harder for them to fill their apartments, according to a survey by the real estate research firm John Burns Research and Consulting.
Realtor.com calculated a 4.2% year-over-year decline in median asking rent for studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments in Jacksonville, which the site said aligns with a national cooldown of the rental market.
It reported that across the 50 largest metro areas in the country, median asking rent dropped 1% from a year earlier, to $1,693.
The site reported year-over-year declines in rent in most of the 50 largest metropolitan areas in 2025. The biggest drops hit the Sunbelt.
Atlanta experienced a 4.1% dip, Las Vegas rents fell by 4.6%, Phoenix dropped by more than 6% and the Raleigh, North Carolina area fell by 5.9%.
Opponents of Trump’s immigration policies say it’s not amounting to big savings for renters.
Mike Konczal, senior director of policy and research for the liberal Economic Security Project, said a reduction in the U.S. population of one million people amounts to a reduction of $4.39 per month in average rent.
Analysts say other factors are driving down the price of rent.
In Houston, the number of new jobs has plummeted from what had been an annual average of 65,000 jobs to fewer than 15,000 jobs in 2025. The slide in job growth has curbed housing demand, while at the same time, the city has added more than 60,000 new apartment units since 2023.
“We are working through that supply wave,” Ms. Aguirre said.
In Jacksonville, a vacancy rate exceeding 9% has been largely blamed on more than 32,000 new apartments built over the past five years.
Many apartments in Jacksonville are offering up to two months of free rent to lure new occupants.
Top economists back the Trump administration’s assertion that the outflow of immigrants from the U.S. is lowering housing costs.
In an address before the Economic Club of New York in September, Federal Reserve Board Governor Stephen I. Miran projected that by the end of 2025, 2 million illegal immigrants would have exited the U.S., cutting population growth from 1% to .4%.
Those reductions, he said, lessen demand for housing and cool the rental market that roughly 100 million Americans now depend on.
“Net zero immigration going forward would imply 1 point lower rent inflation per year,” Mr. Miran said.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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