I’m sure we all remember being told that soaring home prices were caused by interest rates, supply chains, corporate landlords, Mercury being in retrograde, and most of all GREEDY SELLERS – pretty much everything except the millions of illegal aliens pouring across the southern border.

Well, that’s getting harder to argue.

A new working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimates that the unprecedented surge in illegal immigration between 2021 and 2024 accounted for roughly 30% of home-price increases and 20% of rent increases during that period.

The researchers estimate about 7 million illegal aliens added significant demand to already tight housing markets, pushing prices even higher while construction struggled to keep up. The authors stress the paper is preliminary and does not necessarily represent official Federal Reserve policy.

Here’s the reality: it turns out when millions of additional people need places to live, housing gets more expensive. Who could have possibly seen that coming?! Maybe anyone who passed middle-school economics.

For years, anyone suggesting that millions of illegal aliens might drive up housing costs was dismissed as xenophobic. Now, the same argument is backed by a Federal Reserve working paper packed with charts, data and economic analysis. Apparently, it’s no longer a fringe theory once economists put it in a 65-page report.