In Trump’s America, who will build new homes?

The president-elect’s plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrations may backfire, driving up the cost of homebuying even further.

Duewight Garcia overstayed his tourist visa to the US in 2019 after he said run-ins with gangs and his student activism in Honduras made him feel it was unsafe to return. Since then, Garcia, who is in his mid-30s, has worked in sheet rock and framing in the New York City area. It’s hard work, and it can be dangerous, Garcia told CNN in an interview translated from Spanish. “We do the work no one else wants to do.” Garcia is one of many undocumented people in America who earn their living in construction. He and millions of others now face the prospect of mass deportations during President-elect Donald Trump’s term. Trump has said that undocumented immigrants share the blame for America’s once-in-a-generation home affordability crisis, but the president-elect’s deportation plans may backfire, driving up the cost of homebuying even further. Immigrants’ impact on the housing market has taken on new urgency as homebuying has become much more expensive, said Riordan Frost, a senior research analyst at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. Frost said that an influx of immigrants, documented or not, adds to housing demand, potentially increasing competition for homes in certain parts of the US. However, they also help expand the supply of homes, given their outsize role in the construction industry.