"The number one thing we can do to make America affordable is to deport EVERY illegal immigrant."
Plain Citizen applies the same standard to everyone. We have checked claims made by Democratic lawmakers and by the President. Today we check a claim made by a Republican state representative from Florida who made a specific, sweeping assertion: that mass deportation of all illegal immigrants is the single most effective thing the country can do to reduce costs -- and that housing, healthcare, education, and vehicle insurance would all get cheaper as a result.
Those are four specific, testable claims. Plain Citizen went and checked the documented research on each one.
Here is what the record shows.
There is genuine research supporting the idea that more people means more housing demand -- that part is straightforward supply and demand. And immigration, including illegal immigration, does add people.
But here is what the documented research actually shows about what is primarily driving housing costs up.
A peer-reviewed study published in ScienceDirect analyzed state-level data from 2005 to 2022 using Pew Research Center estimates of unauthorized immigrants and Zillow median housing prices. Its finding: no statistically significant relationship between unauthorized immigration and housing rent growth at the state level.
The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies noted that the timing of the immigration surge does not line up with the spike in housing costs -- home prices and rents began climbing sharply in 2020 and 2021, driven by pandemic-era demand and remote work, before immigration increases of 2022 and 2023.
The documented primary driver of the housing affordability crisis is a shortage of approximately 4.7 million homes -- a deficit that began after the 2008 recession when construction collapsed and never recovered. Interest rate increases following that collapse, and again during the post-pandemic inflation period, compounded the problem by keeping existing homeowners in place and locking out first-time buyers.
"Experts agree that increased immigration leads to higher housing demand, but evidence doesn't support the idea that immigrants in the United States illegally are a primary driver of high housing costs."
-- WRAL Fact Check, citing multiple housing economists, November 2025Plain Citizen's assessment: immigration contributes to housing demand and removing a large population would reduce some of that demand. But the documented cause of the affordability crisis is a multi-decade shortage of housing supply -- not immigration. Deportation alone would not fix a 4.7 million unit deficit.
This claim has the clearest documented record of the four. And the record goes directly against Rep. Fine's assertion.
The Congressional Research Service -- a nonpartisan arm of Congress -- reported in its review of the research that the unauthorized population uses fewer services and has lower annual health-related expenditures than authorized immigrants, while both groups use fewer services and have lower annual expenditures than the U.S.-born population.
KFF -- the nonpartisan health policy research organization -- found that undocumented immigrants are significantly less likely than U.S. citizens to seek care. Fear of deportation, lack of insurance, and language barriers all reduce their healthcare utilization. About 50 percent of undocumented immigrants are uninsured -- compared to 8 percent of U.S. citizens.
Most critically for the affordability argument: KFF's research found that immigrants pay more into the healthcare system through taxes and insurance premiums than they utilize -- effectively subsidizing care for U.S.-born citizens. Without the contributions undocumented immigrants make to the Medicare Trust Fund, it would reach insolvency earlier than currently projected.
Plain Citizen's assessment: the documented evidence does not support the claim that deporting illegal immigrants would lower healthcare costs. The research consistently shows they use less healthcare than citizens and contribute more in taxes to fund it than they receive in benefits. Removing them would also reduce the healthcare workforce at a time of documented worker shortages.
This is the one category where Rep. Fine has the clearest factual footing. Undocumented children have a constitutional right to attend public schools under the Supreme Court's 1982 ruling in Plyler v. Doe. States and local governments bear those costs. This is documented and not disputed.
What the claim leaves out is the other side of the ledger.
The American Immigration Council documented that in 2023, households led by undocumented immigrants paid $89.8 billion in total taxes -- including $33.9 billion in state and local taxes. Those state and local taxes directly fund public schools. Removing the families removes those tax contributions alongside the students.
Additionally, roughly 4.1 million U.S. citizen children live with at least one undocumented parent. Mass deportation would separate many of those families -- leaving U.S. citizen children in the school system, often requiring additional social services, without the tax-paying parent remaining in the country to help fund them.
Plain Citizen's assessment: education costs are a legitimate and documented expense. But the claim that deportation would simply lower those costs ignores the documented tax contributions that fund the schools and the U.S. citizen children who would remain in those schools regardless.
This is the claim with the most clearly documented counter-evidence. And the documented evidence goes in the opposite direction from what Rep. Fine claimed.
The logic behind his claim is intuitive: undocumented immigrants drive without licenses, therefore without insurance, therefore raise costs for insured drivers through uninsured motorist claims. That logic is not unreasonable on its face.
Here is what the research actually found when it was tested.
A study published in the Southern Economic Journal examined what happened in states that restricted undocumented immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses. The finding: annual premiums for all drivers rose by an average of $17 a year -- approximately 2 percent -- when those restrictions were in place. When those restrictions were lifted and undocumented immigrants could get licensed and insured, premiums did not rise.
A California study published after the state extended driving privileges to undocumented immigrants found no measurable effects on auto insurance uptake or premium costs. It also found that the policy reduced hit-and-run accidents -- because drivers who feared immigration enforcement at accident scenes no longer had an incentive to flee.
The Pew Charitable Trusts documented the same pattern: more insured drivers in a state generally decrease the price of the uninsured motorist coverage component of insurance premiums, while fewer insured drivers increase it.
Plain Citizen's assessment: the documented research does not support the claim that deporting undocumented immigrants would lower vehicle insurance costs. Multiple peer-reviewed studies found the opposite -- that restricting their access to licenses and insurance actually raises premiums for all drivers.
Rep. Fine's post focused entirely on what deportation would save. It did not mention what deportation would cost -- or what it would remove from the economy and the tax base.
Rep. Fine made a sweeping claim and named four specific cost categories. Plain Citizen checked each one against the documented research.
Housing: Immigration adds demand, but the documented primary driver of unaffordable housing is a 4.7 million unit shortage caused by decades of underbuilding -- not immigration. The claim is contested.
Healthcare: The documented evidence goes directly against this claim. Undocumented immigrants use less healthcare than U.S. citizens and pay more into the system than they take out. Removing them would also reduce the healthcare workforce. The claim is contradicted by the research.
Education: Undocumented children do attend public schools at taxpayer expense -- that part is documented and accurate. But the claim ignores the $33.9 billion in state and local taxes their families pay annually to fund those same schools, and the 4.1 million U.S. citizen children who would remain in those schools regardless. The claim is more complex than presented.
Vehicle Insurance: Multiple peer-reviewed studies found the opposite of what Rep. Fine claimed. Restricting undocumented immigrants from getting licensed and insured raises insurance premiums for all drivers. The claim is reversed by the documented evidence.
Rep. Fine did not mention the documented cost of the deportation itself -- estimated at $900 billion over ten years by the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model -- or the $187.4 billion in lost federal tax revenue that would result.
The claim that mass deportation is the number one way to make America affordable is not supported by the documented research on the four specific costs Rep. Fine cited. The conclusions are yours to make.
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