Investigative journalist Ronan Farrow took to X to decimate Vice President J.D. Vance’s argument that undocumented immigrants are to blame for driving up housing costs for the rest of America.
Farrow played a video of Vance saying this week, “We flooded the country with 30 million illegal immigrants who are taking houses that ought to go to American citizens.”
“And it’s not just him,” Farrow said. “He’s stoking a very popular sentiment about immigration and housing. It’s a potent political argument. It’s also, according to every available metric, fake.”
Here’s the reality of the housing market by the numbers. First, the 30 million figure, it does not exist in any credible data. Reliable demographers from the Department of Homeland Security to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. estimate the undocumented population is actually between 11 and 14 million. Vance is effectively doubling the highest reliable estimate to make a political point.
Second, the claim that these immigrants are “stealing houses” from American buyers. This collapses under scrutiny because it ignores who’s buying and who’s renting. Undocumented immigrants are overwhelmingly renters. They are statistically far more likely to live in shared, high-density housing, meaning they actually consume less housing per person than the average American. They aren’t the ones outbidding you for a starter home.
So, who is competing for those homes? Look at institutional investors. Since 2020, the share of homes sold to investors — that’s entities that don’t live in them — has surged. By mid-2025, investors were purchasing nearly 30% of all single-family homes sold in the U.S. In markets like Atlanta and Phoenix, cash-rich firms swept up starter homes to turn them into rentals. removing them from the purchase market entirely. That is a major reason inventory is scarce, not a fictional 30 million undocumented buyers.
Farrow noted that the deepest root of the housing crisis is due to a “massive supply shortage” of millions of homes.
“And this is where Vance’s argument, ironically, backfires. Vance proposes mass deportations as a housing solution, but the construction industry relies heavily on foreign-born labor.”
