By Giulia CarbonaroShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberCalifornia U.S. Representative Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat representing the Los Angeles area, filed an ambitious new bill on Wednesday which would redirect billions put aside by the Trump administration to fund its immigration crackdown toward helping Americans become homeowners.
"My intention with this bill is to tackle one of the biggest crises that our country is facing, which is the housing affordability crisis," Gomez told Newsweek in a phone interview. "And at the same time doing that by taking that $175 billion anti-immigrant slush fund that Trump put into his One Big Beautiful Bill and using that money to lower the cost of housing for everybody in the country.
"We do that by investing in renter assistance, down payment for every first-time homebuyer, building new starter homes and converting old commercial and office space to housing, and then making sure that everyone gets an opportunity to participate in homeownership if they want to."
The legislation, Gomez said, would help those Americans who have been pushed to the sidelines of the U.S. housing market by growing affordability issues over the past five years to finally achieve homeownership.
Rising home prices, stubbornly elevated mortgage rates, and other higher housing costs—including homeowner association (HOA) fees, homeowner insurance premiums and property taxes—have left scores of Americans struggling to be able to buy a home or afford it if they already have one.
...The share of first-time homebuyers in the U.S. dropped to a record low of 21 percent this year, according to a recent report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), while the typical age of first-time buyers climbed to an all-time high of 40 years.
In a statement commenting on the report’s findings, NAR deputy chief economist and vice president of research Jessica Lautz said that the U.S. housing market is "starved for affordable inventory"—a deficiency that is leaving younger generations with few options and forcing them to delay having children.
What Is in Gomez’s Bill?
Gomez, 51, has represented California’s 34th congressional district since 2017. A vocal critic of the MAGA movement, he is a staunch opponent of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies, which he condemned as "ruthless" during an interview with MS Now, formerly MSNBC, in late November.
His outspokenness has made him a target for mockery, with the White House calling him "Cryin’ Jimmy" in a post on X this summer after he defended workers targeted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) raids.
Gomez is now striking back with a bill, the "Make Housing Affordable & Defend Democracy Act," which wants to redirect $175 billion from President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB)—the funding aimed at supporting his administration’s anti-immigration efforts—toward "real housing solutions" for those Americans who need it the most.
"That $175 billion would be better used to help every single American live a better life," he told Newsweek.
Specifically, the bill would target funding related to border militarization, what Gomez calls inhumane detention, razor wire grants, and secretive Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/ICE programs. Gomez called spending $175 billion on these immigration strategies "wasteful."
..."Housing is one of those major issues that I think cuts across political parties, cuts across regions. The average American now is considered rent burdened, paying more than 30 percent of their income toward rent. And that’s not just in blue states and blue cities," Gomez said.
"It was the number one issue in 2024, it’s the number one issue now in 2025 and will be the number one issue in 2026," Gomez said of housing. "If we want to make sure that people have more money in their pocket to start a small business, save for college, save for retirement, you have to deal with the housing cost that increases by double-digits every single year.
"If we don’t deal with it, then our families are going to struggle even more as time goes on. There’s only so many places you can move in this country. Eventually the housing crisis gets to you if it’s not already there."
The bill would create the first-ever monthly Renter Tax Credit, which would provide $60,000+ in down payment assistance for first-generation homebuyers, convert vacant commercial buildings into affordable housing, and expand deeply affordable units nationwide.
The bill can count on more than 60 House cosponsors and is endorsed by nonprofits and advocates groups UnidosUS, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), CASA, the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA), A Way Home America, and the Coalition for Humane Immigrants Rights (CHIRLA).
Gomez’s interest in housing—and solving the current affordability crisis in the U.S.—is not new. The California Democrat convened the first-ever National Summit on the Housing Affordability Crisis in September, bringing lawmakers, advocates, labor, industry and community leaders together to discuss how to fix the country’s housing emergency.
"This isn’t just a housing crisis. It’s a crisis of confidence in the American system itself," Gomez said in a statement in September. "When families working full time are still forced to choose between rent, food, or health care, they begin to question if their leaders, institutions, and government truly fight for them. America needs a housing boom: one that prioritizes affordability, fairness, and accessibility."
What Has Trump Done About The Housing Affordability Crisis?
During his 2024 campaign, Trump blamed illegal immigrants for the ongoing housing shortage, suggesting that he would release much-needed inventory into the market by deporting masses of undocumented people.
As of September, the DHS said that over 2 million illegal immigrants had left the country through 400,000 deportations and an estimated 1,600,000 so-called self-deportations. But there is no official data of the impact on the housing market, which faced a slump this spring and summer as demand dwindled in the face of longstanding affordability challenges.
The Trump administration has also recently cracked down on immigrants’ access to some federal housing programs, reinterpreting the immigration verification requirements under a 1996 law, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996—also known as PRWORA.
The president has also talked about opening up federal land for housing construction, another move that could potentially increase inventory across the country—though in a limited number of states where federal land is abundant and suitable for development.
He repeated his pledge to cut regulations and establish low-tax zones across federal lands to boost housing construction at the Economic Club of New York in September, but did not give any details on when or how he would do so.The president has also floated the idea of privatizing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and introducing a 50-year mortgage. But no major reform has been introduced yet in this direction.
Gomez said that Trump has not improved affordability in the housing market so far, claiming instead that he had made it worse.
"What made the difference for Donald Trump [in 2024] was the fact that he said he would lower the cost of living on day one," Gomez said. "He failed to do that. He’s actually made the situation worse by imposing these tariffs across the board and then ignoring the fact that people were being squeezed by high housing costs plus increasing child care costs.
"At the same time, he’s actually making things worse in the housing sector because he’s arresting the people that are building the housing stock in our country."
His new bill, he said, "is to start making the voters think that if they want a party in charge of Congress that’s going to address the housing affordability crisis, then the Democrats have plans."
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