To Solve the Housing Crisis We Must Fix Immigration Policy

A blog empowering Hispanic homeownership through advocacy and policy.

By Elizabeth Nimmons
June 26, 2025

Immigration reform has long been a cornerstone of NAHREP’s policy priorities and a central pillar of the organization’s advocacy efforts. Not only are NAHREP members passionate about immigration policy, but immigrants play an essential role in the housing industry in terms of both supply and demand. In recent months, increased immigration enforcement, including massively expanded deportation efforts, has reiterated the urgency of this issue. Last week, NAHREP released a statement condemning the Administration’s mass deportation efforts and the detrimental impact these enforcement activities will have on the housing industry and U.S. economy.

Pro-immigration conversations often center on the fact that immigrants, including the undocumented, pay taxes that support federal and state government initiatives. But immigrants’ contributions to the American economy go far beyond simply paying taxes. The immigrant workforce is the backbone of many American industries, including the housing market. In this month’s installment of NAHREP’s 2025 Policy Priorities Webinar Series, Rebecca Shi, CEO of the American Business Immigration Coalition (ABIC), joined NAHREP to talk about the connections between the current housing supply and affordability crisis and immigration policy. If you missed it, you can watch the recording here.

So, how important is immigration to the housing market? And, what role does immigration policy reform really play in solving the current crisis?

The Housing Affordability Crisis Is Also a Labor Crisis

There is no denying that the American housing market is in crisis. A lack of adequate housing supply has led to a dramatic increase in home prices. As of Q3 2024, Freddie Mac estimates the U.S. housing market is short 3.7 million units relative to demand. As a result, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, between 2020 and 2024, home prices increased a staggering 47 percent, far outpacing growth in household income. In order to increase housing supply, the U.S. needs to build more homes. Unfortunately, labor shortages in the construction industry have made that difficult and expensive.

According to the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), the U.S. needs 439,000 new construction workers in 2025 alone to meet current demand. In 2026, that number increases to 499,000. Given that immigrants make up a full quarter of the construction workforce and nearly one third of all workers in the construction trades, immigrants will continue to be critical to housing production. The ABC has noted that while immigration has “bolstered labor supply” in recent years, more conservative immigration policy threatens to “constrain worker availability.” Without immigration reform that actually increases immigration, it is impossible to address the labor shortage fueling the housing supply crisis.

Construction Workers are Essential Workers

The Trump Administration has recently acknowledged the critical role of agricultural and hospitality workers, going as far as to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels, and restaurants. This is a positive step in ensuring the stability of these industries and their role in the American economy. Notably absent from this discussion on essential workers, however, is the construction labor force.

Let’s be clear: construction workers are essential workers, and overlooking this fact puts the nation at risk of further worsening the housing supply crisis. Prioritizing not only the stability, but also growth, of the construction labor force is the first step in building more homes, and immigration policy reform is the most obvious way to do so.

On the Table: Senator Gallego’s Proposal

Despite immigration’s clear role in shaping the housing market, it is rarely integrated into conversations on policy solutions to housing supply and affordability issues. That must change. The housing supply crisis is also a labor crisis, and any new immigration policy must reflect the urgent labor needs of the housing industry. So, what options are already on the table?

Recently, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) introduced an immigration plan with the goals of both securing the border and reforming the current immigration system. Gallego’s plan, “Securing the Border and Fueling Economic Prosperity,” includes five key pillars:

1. Significant investment in border security, including a focus on hiring and retaining Border Patrol agents and investment in security technologies at ports of entry.
2. Reforming the asylum system by hiring more officers to address the current backlog and raising the standard for claiming asylum.
3. Expanding legal immigration pathways by increasing the annual allotment of visas and Green Cards and removing or significantly reducing per-country caps.
4. Providing a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens and Green Card holders.
5. Addressing the root causes of migration to the U.S. by funding regional immigration enforcement efforts and incentivizing other countries to resettle refugees and asylum seekers.

Most relevant to NAHREP’s priorities, including expanding the construction labor force, are items three and four: “expanding legal pathways to fuel economic prosperity” and “bringing people out of the shadows.” If enacted, these pillars would empower and protect the immigrant workforce by establishing a wider variety of legal pathways into the country, ensuring stronger labor standards for temporary visa holders, and creating pathways to citizenship for some long-term residents. For these reasons, NAHREP strongly endorses these aspects of the Senator’s immigration plan.

Immigration Reform is Housing Reform

Solving the housing supply and affordability crisis requires ensuring the U.S. first has the workforce needed to build new homes. This is impossible without comprehensive immigration reform that prioritizes the growth of the construction sector. NAHREP urges policymakers and industry stakeholders to:

• Recognize construction labor as essential to both the housing market and the American economy.
• Support proposals that expand employment visa caps and create new avenues for legal immigration.
• Create pathways to citizenship for long-term, law-abiding undocumented immigrants who are critical to the housing sector.
• Understand that immigration reform is fundamental to addressing the housing supply and affordability crisis.

Immigration policy is often excluded from housing conversations, yet the two are deeply intertwined. If policymakers are serious about solving the housing supply and affordability crisis, they must treat immigration reform as a fundamental part of the solution.

Ready to take a deeper dive into another one of NAHREP’s top policy priorities? Join us for the third installment of our 2025 Policy Priorities Webinar Series:

Bridging the Gap: Expanding Credit Access for Latino Homebuyers

Date: Tuesday, July 22 at 10am PT/12pm CT/1pm ET

Access to mortgage credit is essential to homeownership, but for many Latino homebuyers, the process is filled with unnecessary obstacles. In the third installment of NAHREP’s 2025 Policy Priorities Webinar Series, we’ll discuss innovative solutions for expanding access to credit—from alternative credit models to targeted lending programs—and explore how policy, industry, and community leaders can work together to bridge the gap. Join us to learn how expanding access to credit is key to building generational wealth and closing the homeownership divide.