Vice President JD Vance addressed the growing concerns over the housing crisis on Monday, pointing to illegal immigration as a major factor exacerbating the problem.
Speaking at the National League of Cities Congressional Conference in Washington, D.C., Vance underscored how soaring housing prices are placing a significant burden on hardworking American families, while the influx of illegal immigrants has worsened the situation.
Highlighting the stark reality of home affordability in the U.S., Vance noted that the cost of purchasing a new home now demands nearly double the average household income.
“That’s just not acceptable or sustainable,” he stated, highlighting the need for policies that prioritize American citizens.
“We want Americans to be able to afford the American Dream of home ownership,” he continued.
Vance pointed to the last four years of unchecked illegal immigration as a significant driver of housing demand, intensifying the affordability crisis.
“One of the drivers of increased housing demand, we know, is that we have got a lot of people over the last four years, who have come into the country illegally,” he remarked. “And that’s something we have to work on, if we want to meaningfully reduce the cost of housing too.”
Elaborating on the impact of mass migration, the vice president noted how the flood of new arrivals has created unnecessary and preventable competition in the housing market.
“Just think about this: If you allow 20 million people to compete with American citizens for the cost of homes, you are going to have a large and frankly, completely preventable spike in the demand for housing,” he pointed out.
“And that is what we, of course, have seen, because while we made it a little bit hard to build homes in this country, over the last four years, we’ve also unfortunately made it way too easy for people to compete against American citizens for the precious homes that are in our country to begin with,” the vice president added.
Vance stressed that the country’s lenient immigration policies have made it “far too easy” for non-citizens to take advantage of resources that should be reserved for Americans.
“There’s a clear link—more mass immigration, higher housing prices. It’s hurting working families across this country,” he said.
“You see a very consistent relationship between a massive increase in immigration and a massive increase in housing prices. And we have to be honest about that,” he added.
As he spoke, his comments drew pushback from an audience member who heckled him mid-speech. In response, Vance quipped:
“I see one of our nice representatives out here wants to actually continue to flood the country with illegal immigrants, making your communities and cities unaffordable.”
His remark was met with applause from the audience. Addressing another outburst from a protester, Vance maintained his composure and defended the administration’s stance on border enforcement.
“But ma’am, with all respect, one of the reasons why we’re doing what we’re doing is because we want to make it more affordable for Americans to live,” he told the woman.
Moments later, another individual shouted at the vice president, prompting him to respond in a similar fashion.
“Maybe he’ll shout it in front of 2,000 people, I can’t even hear what you’re saying, sir,” Vance said dismissively before reaffirming the administration’s dedication to enforcing immigration laws.
“Importantly on this question of immigration, we have to recognize that yes, you can disagree with some of the laws that are in place,” he shot back. “You can disagree with the enforcement of those laws, you can even vote for people who want to change those laws.”
“But while we have immigration laws on the books, we will enforce them and we expect our local municipalities to help us,” Vance concluded.
Meanwhile, Border Czar Tom Homan provided a sobering update on the country’s immigration enforcement efforts, revealing that the federal government is running out of funding for deportations.
In an interview with Fox Business on Monday, Homan warned that unless Congress allocates additional resources, the ability to deport illegal immigrants will be severely limited.
Homan, who has long been a staunch advocate for securing the southern border, estimated that the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense would require upwards of $80 billion to carry out large-scale deportations.
The lack of funding, he noted, is creating a crisis in detention capacity.
“We’re running out of beds in two weeks. We’re at about 46,000 in custody now. We ought to be at 65,000 at this point in time,” Homan said.
“And when we run out of beds, we stop interior operations. When we arrest somebody, we got to have a bed to put them in for removal.”
He urged Congress to act swiftly, highlighting the importance of fulfilling campaign promises to restore law and order at the border.
“So Congress does need to get the funding we need so this administration can keep the promises made to the American people,” he stated.
“We’re doing great. The border [crossings] are down 97%,” Homan concluded, commending the administration’s success in curbing illegal entries.
Watch Homan’s interview on Fox Business here:
Sadly Vance’s take on the housing cost problem is the smallest part of the problem. The REAL problem which has been going on for the past 10 years is the “real estate agency’s monopoly strangle hold” on the real estate industry. Take that monopoly away and housing costs will immediately drop by at least 20%. On top of this the massive purchases of single family homes by “real estate investors” like BlackRock are deeply adding to the shortage of inventory leading to the increase in prices. The quickest way to fix this problem is to file charges of monopolistic practices against every large real estate company in America. You already know the major players because they have already been in front of Congress more than once for “illegal & unethical sales practices”. The DOJ and the Commerce Department are the people that should be investigating and charging the real estate industry under the RICO statutes. BlackRock’s interests are socialistic in nature. They are opposed to “private property ownership” like all socialists and communists.