By Matt Rooney
New Jersey politicians never stop talking about the state’s “housing crisis.” They blame zoning. They blame developers. They blame municipalities. They demand more affordable housing mandates.
But there is one obvious contributor they rarely seem interested in discussing:
New Jersey has added a very large unauthorized immigrant population to one of America’s most expensive and supply-constrained housing markets.
That matters, Save Jerseyans! Especially if you’re stuck in your parents’ basement because you cannot afford your first home or apartment.
According to Pew Research Center’s latest state estimates, approximately 600,000 unauthorized immigrants lived in New Jersey in 2023, making the Garden State home to the fifth-largest unauthorized immigrant population in America. New Jersey was also among the states where that population increased by at least 75,000 between 2021 and 2023.
Perhaps even more relevant to housing: Pew estimates that 9% of all New Jersey households included at least one unauthorized immigrant in 2023, tying New Jersey with several other states near the top nationally.
That’s not an insignificant presence in the housing market.
Meanwhile, New Jersey housing is already brutally expensive. Census Bureau data puts the state’s median gross rent at $1,720 per month, the median owner-occupied home value at $454,400, and median monthly housing costs for homeowners with mortgages at $2,829.
New Jersey’s own government acknowledges how severe the affordability problem has become.
The Department of Community Affairs reports that 48.3% of New Jersey renter households are housing-cost burdened, spending more than 30% of the household’s total income on housing. An astounding 25.2% are severely burdened, spending more than half their income on housing. More than half — 51.6% — of renter households experience at least one identified housing problem, including excessive costs, overcrowding or inadequate facilities.
Now add hundreds of thousands of unauthorized immigrants to that equation.
It doesn’t require an economics degree to understand what happens next.
Every person needs somewhere to live. Illegal immigrants may rent apartments, double up with relatives, share houses with other workers or eventually purchase homes. Multiple people occupying one unit reduces the number of additional units required, but it doesn’t make their housing demand disappear.
And housing supply can’t adjust overnight.
New Jersey had an estimated 3.83 million housing units in 2025 but issued permits for only 27,661 additional units that year, according to Census data.
That’s the fundamental problem.
When demand increases faster than the supply of desirable and affordable housing, renters compete for what already exists. That competition puts upward pressure on prices.
The effect is particularly important at the lower end of the rental market, where newly arrived migrants are more likely to compete with young adults, working-class families and other lower-income residents.
Illegal immigration isn’t the sole cause of New Jersey’s housing crisis. High taxes and government regulation also contribute. But acknowledging those facts can’t distract from the elemental physics of supply and demand.
New Jersey’s population reached an estimated 9.55 million in 2025, up 2.8% from its 2020 estimate base, while the state continues struggling to provide enough affordable housing.
Trenton can’t have this argument both ways.
If New Jersey desperately needs more housing because too many people are competing for too few affordable units, then adding hundreds of thousands of unauthorized immigrants to the state’s population necessarily matters to that equation. You can’t demand municipalities accommodate ever-growing housing demand while refusing to address arguably the single largest controllable factor driving demand.
