Deportations have reached 3.5 million, and Beth Van Duyne says that is why housing costs are starting to fall.
Democrats have spent the year running on affordability, and the show's own polling has the economy as the top issue for more than half of American voters. The Texas congresswoman's answer was to claim the issue back — and the evidence she reached for was not a tax cut but a Federal Reserve research paper on what unauthorized immigration did to house prices and rents.
"We cannot underestimate the amount of benefit we've got just from getting deportations at 3.5 million, you know?"
Van Duyne sits in the House Republican conference that wrote the tax provisions she is defending here, and her district runs what she says is the largest job fair in the country.
I listened to the full segment so you can skip it.
Here are the 5 takeaways that matter.
👤 Guest: Beth Van Duyne, the Republican congresswoman for a Texas district, who runs what she says is the country's largest annual job fair
🎙️ Host: David Asman, guest-hosting Kudlow for Larry Kudlow
📰 Published: 1 September 2026 on Fox Business, and on the Kudlow podcast feed
🟣 Apple Podcasts | ⏱️ 46 min
Key Takeaways
The housing argument for immigration enforcement now rests on a Federal Reserve paper She put the paper's figures at 30% of the increase in house prices and 20% of the rise in apartment costs
Republicans are running on a tax increase that did not happen, and she says that is hard to sell The claim is a $4 trillion increase avoided, plus the largest refunds in the country's history
The affordability issue is the one both parties think they own going into November The show's polling has the economy first for over 50% of voters and immigration second at about 10%
A congressional district office is being run as an economic development shop 670 employers, 68,000 jobs and about 50,000 attendees at one August job fair
Money is running seven to one against the Republican in the Texas Senate race Her explanation is out-of-state donors responding to favorable polls, not Texas opinion
1. The affordability fight
Asman opened with the show's own numbers on what voters say matters, and asked why Republicans are not winning the argument.
The host's polling figures: the economy is the number one issue for more than 50% of American voters, and immigration is second at about 10%
He put two claims to her as the Republican case. Real wages, adjusted for inflation, are up under President Trump and fell 3.9% across the four years of the Biden administration The second was that 66 million taxpayers are now taking one of three deductions created by the One Big Beautiful Bill: relief on Social Security income, no tax on overtime, or no tax on tips
Her answer accepted the framing and added a timeline. She said prices were rising out of control through the previous four years, and that Republicans have had less than two years to bring them down: "And we've had less than two years to try to bring them down, and we've been successful."
She claimed three results and attributed all of them to legislation rather than to the cycle. Job growth in the private sector rather than the public sector, and wage growth running ahead of inflation "Those were all by policy choices, part of the working families tax cut bill"
2. Deportations and rents
The claim that carries the segment is that enforcement is housing policy. "We cannot underestimate the amount of benefit we've got just from getting deportations at 3.5 million, you know?"
The evidence she cited is a central bank research paper, not a party document. "We saw the Dallas Fed just released a paper that talked about the incredible increase in housing, 30%, that was caused by illegal immigration." She put the effect on rents alongside it, at 20% of the increase in apartment costs
The conclusion she drew runs the mechanism in reverse. "So by those deportations, you're also seeing housing going down." What the argument asserts is that removing renters and buyers from a market where supply cannot adjust quickly takes the demand pressure off prices, and that the effect is already visible
3. Record refunds, $4T avoided
Asman said he could not believe that 66 million taxpayers do not realize they are getting a refund they could not have claimed before.
She went further than the refunds themselves. "Not only are we seeing higher refunds than we've seen in our nation's history, but we also were able to avoid a $4 trillion tax increase which would have happened if we weren't able to fund that bill."
She conceded the political problem in the same breath. "That's kind of a hard thing to run on, what didn't happen, but Republicans are squared in on this." A tax increase that was legislated away leaves no receipt in a voter's hand, which is why she said the message has to be carried in person in the district
4. 68K jobs at one job fair
Her second answer to the affordability question is casework and hiring rather than legislation. "We have returned over $100 million for our constituents in our district."
The job fair is the piece she led on. "One of the big things I'm proud of is this is our fifth annual job fair." "We now have the largest job fair in the country, we had 670 employers representing and hiring for 68,000 jobs this past August. And we had about 50,000 people all come out to do that"
The framing is that the job is done in two places. She said members do the work in Washington and then go home and do it again, and that connecting people to well-paying jobs is what House Republicans are for
5. Texas Senate money gap
Asman put the race in fundraising terms. "So explain to me why Talarico has a 7 to 1 advantage against Paxton running for the Senate from Texas in terms of cash on hand?"
Her answer is that the money is following the polls and coming from outside the state. "I don't understand it. Because I think you're seeing some polls that are showing him pulling ahead, and all that's doing is increasing the amount of cash he can get from places like California and New York." She said Texas has seen out-of-state money behind a Democratic Senate candidate before
She expects the positions to do the work the money cannot. Her list of what she thinks Texans will react against includes comparing capitalism to white supremacy and proposing a state income tax in Texas, which the state does not levy She added a third item, about how the candidate refers to women, and said that once voters hear those things there is no way they support him
Bonus Insights
The segment ran at the end of a broadcast that opened on new US strikes on Iran, oil above $90 a barrel and stocks down over 400 points, none of which came up in this conversation
Asman's own framing of the Democratic position was that the party believes it owns the affordability question, and his argument back was that the two things voters can check — real wages and their own tax refund — both run the other way
Van Duyne's account of the previous four years is that prices rose out of control, and she made the recovery a matter of about two years of work rather than a cycle turning
Van Duyne's bottom line is that Republicans should be winning on affordability on the numbers — refunds, wages and now house prices — and that the reason they are not is that avoided harm and slower rent increases are harder to campaign on than a price rise is to complain about.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (The source of the research she used for the claim that illegal immigration drove 30% of the increase in house prices and 20% of the rise in apartment costs)
Books & Resources Mentioned
The Impacts of Unauthorized Immigration on U.S. Labor and Housing Markets (The Dallas Fed working paper she said had just been released, which she cited for the housing and apartment cost figures)
If this was worth your time, send it to someone who has to have a view on this.
Get the latest market chatter as it happens: