HUD chief blames 'unchecked illegal immigration' pricing-out families amid new housing report
EXCLUSIVE: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner slammed the Biden administration for what he called an illegal immigration and refugee crisis that rattled the housing market – particularly for low-income renters – though some analysts dispute the findings.
Every two years, HUD releases its "Worst Case Housing Needs Report" – considered the agency’s flagship assessment of the state of the housing market for low-income Americans – and how many lack affordable and adequate housing. The report serves as a nationwide barometer of housing stress and shows whether the availability of affordable housing is improving or worsening, and who may be being hurt by the current conditions, which Congress can then use to craft policy.
Policymakers use it to gauge gaps in the supply of low-cost rentals, target federal housing programs, and understand trends in who is being left behind. In short, it’s HUD’s way of tracking the renters in the greatest need — and how the U.S. housing system is failing to meet them.
Turner told Fox News Digital there are damning findings in this year’s assessment that he places right on the policies of former President Joe Biden’s immigration crisis.
"The unchecked illegal immigration and open borders policies allowed by the Biden administration continue to put significant strain on housing, pricing out American families," Turner said.
"These policies have plagued America’s housing market, but in President Trump, Americans finally have a leader fighting to restore sanity to American immigration policy."
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But Jenna Stauffer, Global Real Estate Advisor at Sotheby's International Realty of Key West, told Fox News Digital she didn't think immigration was the primary driver of the "housing mess we are in."
"Housing affordability has been unraveling for years, and the problems we’re dealing with go way beyond any one factor," she said.
"We’ve really been under building for almost two decades. After the Great Recession, construction basically stalled, and it took years to recover. By some estimates, the U.S. is short four to seven million homes, and that long-term shortage is the core issue behind today’s affordability challenges."
HUD's 2025 report found that increased immigration has driven up housing prices, and that the "unrestricted" nature of the influx has both strained the housing market and priced-out many American families. The report found that an estimated 15 million illegal immigrants constitute 30% of all foreign-born residents.
Turner added in separate comments to Fox Business that HUD took away Federal Housing Authority-backed mortgages from illegal immigrants offered during the Biden administration, saying the former president "turned a blind eye" to the issue.
In California and New York, immigrants have accounted for 100% of all rental growth and over one-half of all growth in owner-occupied housing in recent years, the report found – while nationally, the foreign-born population accounted for more than 60% of the growth in rental demand.
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Nationwide, the foreign-born population accounted for two-thirds of rental demand growth.
HUD’s report contrasted that figure with the 13% growth attributed to noncitizens in 2019 and 2023’s lookbacks.
"This further demonstrates that non-citizen households are playing an increasing role in the household growth that is straining the affordable housing supply," the 109-page report said.
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The agency found that without the migrant surge, housing inventory pressures would have been far lower and prices would not have climbed as sharply, noting roughly 784,000 fewer households would have formed over that period.
Net additions to the housing market from 2015 onward have not kept up with "household formation among citizens" and non-citizen population growth has also inordinately affected rental markets.
Worst-case housing reports have been released regularly since 1991, but the 2025 findings mark a sharper warning about the illegal immigration crisis’ impact on the numbers.
In August, Turner ordered an audit of every public housing authority, seeking data on verifiable citizenship of those living in subsidized housing.
"No longer will illegal aliens be able to leave citizenship boxes blank or take advantage of HUD-funded housing, riding the coattails of hardworking American citizens," Turner said.
"Currently, HUD only serves one out of four eligible families due, in part, to the lack of enforcement of prohibition against federally funded assistance to illegal aliens," he continued.
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Vice President JD Vance highlighted a recent comment from Turner – who had been responding to a CNBC report that rents have dropped for four straight months.
"Six months of zero illegals released into our country. Two million illegals removed. Rents dropped for the fourth straight month. Coincidence? I think not," Turner said.
Vance echoed what the agency ultimately would find in its report, remarking that the "connection between illegal immigration and skyrocketing housing costs is as clear as day."
HUD’s findings, as expressed by Turner and others prior to the official report, also had other critics.
Harvard Joint Center For Housing Studies senior research analyst Riordan Frost previously wrote that while the "surge in immigration" has affected the market, other factors like the coronavirus pandemic contributed to increases in housing costs during that time in history.
"Immigrants play a role in household growth, sometimes to a substantial degree, but housing demand during the pandemic has been primarily shaped by native-born household growth in a time of constrained housing supply," Frost said.
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Rep. Bonnie Watson-Coleman, D-N.J., also lit into Turner at a recent hearing, saying "you (Turner) are worsening the housing crisis with your budget proposal."
"If you really believe that you would not slash your agency's budget by over 50%," she said.
Additionally, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., claimed earlier this year that Turner was "abandoning HUD’s legal obligation to eliminate housing discrimination in the United States [a]t a time when America is experiencing a full-blown housing crisis and record levels of housing discrimination complaints."
Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Biden for purposes of this story but did not hear back by press time.