> There were a record 44.8 million immigrants living in the U.S. in 2018, making up 13.7% of the nation’s population.
If the USA was net neutral on immigration (as many people entered as left), the birth rate would be too low, there would be some tens of millions of dwelling units either empty or never having been built.
This is a very important point that gets almost no discussion. Two classic "liberal" policy objectives, immigration and affordable housing, are at war with each other.
This is not an "own the libs" comment. Both policy objectives can be morally right, and still work badly with each other.
Immigration makes it much harder to fix affordable housing. That's just reality. It seems to be completely ignored by politicians, though - including those on the right, who seem to have ignored this as a club for beating up politicians on the left.
There is a simple solution to fix unaffordable housing that is effective regardless of immigration levels. And that's to allow more housing to be built by relaxing zoning restrictions.
Support for both immigration and zoning reform are in no way incompatible.
Where are they going to move to? Or are you saying that there simply won't be any young people anywhere, because they were never born?