Months after refugee resettlement halted in U.S. cities like Houston, Texas, social worker Claire Poff still receives calls from apartment complexes, asking if she knows of any newcomers to fill vacancies.

“They're like, ‘Why aren't you sending us people? We have open apartments, and we're needing people,’” she said. “They really relied on newcomers to be able to fill their properties.”

Poff has been working with refugees at apartment complexes in Houston for 15 years. She lost her job in refugee resettlement earlier this year after the federal program scaled down, but she still checks in on families to see how they’re doing. During one visit, she saw U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at a complex.

“I was surprised, because it caused a lot of fear with the clients that I've been working with and they have legal permanent statuses,” Poff said.

Deportations and other Trump administration immigration policies have triggered the reversal of a decades-long migration trend that boosted population growth in cities like Houston.

Last year, Harris County beat out nearly every other U.S. county in population growth — 96% of that increase was due to international migration.

But, this year, the immigration tides have changed.

In the first half of 2025, the U.S. immigrant population declined by 1 million people, according to the Pew Research Center. It’s the first time the foreign born population decreased since the 1960s.

The impacts are starting to show up in Houston’s housing market, especially in immigrant-rich pockets of the city like southwest Houston. The area is home to diverse, working class foreign born populations. The streets are lined with pupusa restaurants, halal grocery stores and apartment buildings advertising move-in offers.

At one neighborhood apartment building with grey brick, empty red apartment doors show no signs of renters — none of the typical porch plants or other decorations. The leasing office confirmed to Marketplace that immigration policies, including ICE raids, led to a decrease in occupancy.

CoStar real estate analyst Itziar Aguirre has heard the same from low-end apartments in Houston. While the buildings have struggled with low occupancy for a while due to ongoing economic stress and inflation, she said, “they've also noticed that some residents, especially undocumented immigrants, have left apartments due to fears of deportation.”

It’s not just the rental market starting to feel the impacts of immigration policies. While recently arrived immigrants are more likely to be renters, a smaller, wealthier share of newcomers do buy homes.

Redfin reported a 24% decrease year-on-year in Houston home searches on their website from users outside the U.S. and Canada in August 2025.

“We do see a clear downturn in property sales by foreign buyers who live outside of the U.S. today,” said real estate agent Jane Byrd, who works with international clients in Houston from Mexico, Canada, China, India and Europe and is chair of the Houston Association of Realtors Global Advisory Group.

“I do believe it is due to the immigration policy by the Trump administration that foreign buyers are hesitant. They've halted, and they really are buying much less than they were prior to this year,” she said.

Byrd said where she has seen business pick up is with clients looking to buy property abroad.

“Before this year, people were buying abroad for lifestyle and financial reasons, or retiring. But there's more of a strategic move this year because of the political uncertainty and immigration policy,” she said.

People are moving away from Texas to Mexico, Belize, and Panama, she said.

“They started getting their second citizenships. They started applying for passports in other countries,” she said.

Fewer people moving to Houston from abroad while more people leave the city because of deportations and other policies could lead to considerably less growth in the foreign-born population — or even a decrease.

“It would be the first time since probably the ‘80s that Harris County lost population,” said Bill King, a public finance fellow with Rice University.

Houston's economy has relied on consistent population growth.

“Sales taxes to apartment occupancies to used car sales to all sorts of things will be impacted if we actually have a population drop,” King said.

After years of welcoming newcomers, Houston is beginning to grapple with what the downturn in immigration could mean for the housing market and the economy as a whole.