Home builders say immigration reform is essential to ease housing affordability crisis

The housing crisis shows no signs of slowing, and some home builders are saying that more immigration could help ease Americans' home woes.

The Trump administration has argued that tightening immigration enforcement would open up units currently housing illegal aliens and other immigrants, but some in the business argue otherwise.

'We’ve got to create a visa system for people who want to work legally in this country, in the construction industry.'

"Labor is one of the largest and most expensive inputs when it comes to home production and land development," said National Association of Home Builders CEO and president Jim Tobin to Fox News Digital.

A shortage in skilled labor means costly delays and higher expenses for builders, who pass on the costs to homebuyers.

Tobin added that there's a "persistent shortage" in construction labor, which has expressed itself as a labor gap of as many as 400,000 workers in busy times.

"This shortage adds nearly two extra months to building timelines, inflating costs and delaying delivery,” said Home Builders Institute President and CEO Ed Brady.

About one-third of the home-building workforce is made up of immigrants, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Tobin said the industry struggles to replace skilled tradespeople who retire.

"It’s not only about training more people to come into the industry as our current generation ages out of the skilled trades, but it’s also the immigration problem that we have in this country," he added.

He went on to call for pathways to legalization for workers already in the country.

"We’ve got to find a way to modernize our immigration laws," Tobin continued. "We’ve got to create a visa system for people who want to work legally in this country, in the construction industry."

That is unlikely given the opposition to amnesty in the current administration and in the electorate. A recent poll showed that 46% of Americans supported the president's policies on enforcing immigration, and he has made mass deportations a key promise of his second term.

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However, Americans also want action on housing affordability. The Trump administration announced a plan to ease the housing crisis, but increasing construction labor through immigration was not a part of that plan.

One part of the plan included easing zoning and building restrictions in order to increase the housing stock and give Americans greater options in choosing a home.

Meanwhile, the latest annual report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies revealed very little good news for renters and homeowners, who are strained by high rents and very little housing cost relief.

Tobin went on to conclude that affordability is likely to worsen unless the labor-shortage crisis is resolved.

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