The New York Times quietly flip-flopped after squirting out a “fact-check” claiming Sen. J.D. Vance was wrong when he said migration pushes up housing costs for Americans.
The reversal is a reluctant concession by the New York newspaper, which refuses to cover migration’s pocketbook damage to ordinary Americans.
The first “Fact Check” was posted by economics reporter Jeanna Smialek before 10:30 p.m., after Vance repeatedly spotlighted the impact of migration on Americans’ housing bills during the vice-presidential debate.
She quoted Vance’s words at the debate: “There’s a Federal Reserve study that we’re happy to share after the debate — we’ll put it up on social media, actually — that really drills down on the connection between increased levels of migration, especially illegal immigration, and higher housing prices.”
Smialek rated it false.
By midnight, the newspaper had dropped the “False” claim, and instead declared that Vance’s statement “needs context.”
“Needs context” is a tacit admission that Vance is correct.
Both versions of the fact check include the same tentative pushback:
It is not clear what study Mr. Vance is referring to in his remarks. Some Federal Reserve officials and studies have suggested that immigration might push up home prices around the edges. A study by the Dallas Fed said that “the population influx could put upward pressure on rents and house prices, particularly in the short run before new supply can be built.” And the Minneapolis Fed president said that immigrants “need a place to live, and their arrival in the U.S. has likely also increased demand for housing.”
But most research that ties the cost of housing to recent immigration comes from groups that push for less immigration, like the Center for Immigration Studies.
The flip-flop was likely prompted by disagreements between the editors and the reporter, who does cover the economy.
For several years, Breitbart News has carefully covered the impact of migration on housing costs in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
Vance has emphasized the same point, and on Tuesday night, he repeatedly said house prices are elevated by the federal government’s migration policy.
“Look in Springfield, Ohio, and communities all across this country — you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you’ve got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes,” Vance told the debate viewers.
Some establishment reporters and pro-migration groups claim that the problem is a system failure to ensure housing for the migrants and say that it is unfair to blame migrants for housing costs. They also focus their attention on suppressing voter disagreement — which they damn as “xenophobia” — instead of reducing migration to help American families get the housing they want.
But Vance also preempted those excuses, saying, “We don’t want to blame immigrants for higher housing prices, but we do want to blame Kamala Harris for letting in millions of illegal aliens into this country, which does drive up costs higher.”
Many establishment reporters recognize the problem but seem to be under constant pressure from higher-ups to ignore the economic impact of migration.
Even some Democrats admit the problem is caused by migration’s impact on the housing market. “If we can help folks that have been in shelter a long time get housing subsidies, and if we can help asylum seekers get work authorizations … they won’t be competing for the same units,” New York City Comptroller Brad Lander told Axios in September 2023.
Many studies recognize migration’s impact on housing and on the nation’s mortgage rates.
“My own analysis indicates that a 5-percentage point increase in the recent immigrant share of a metro area’s population is associated with a 12-percent increase in the average U.S.-born household’s rent, relative to their income,” Steven Camarota, research chief for the Center for Immigration Studies, told a House hearing on September 25.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell claimed on September 18, “Immigration is ‘neutral‘ for inflation because it simultaneously lowers wages and raises housing costs.”
Immigrants “need a place to live, and their arrival in the U.S. has likely also increased demand for housing,” Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said on May 7. In turn, he said, mortgage rates are being nudged upwards with higher interest rates, saying, “Perhaps a neutral [interest] rate for the housing market is higher than before the pandemic.”
