What a Zero Immigration America Could Mean for North Carolina

A plain-language look at how a zero or net-zero immigration policy could quietly reshape jobs, housing, healthcare, and everyday costs

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Holly Springs, NC, Dec. 28, 2025 — Immigration debates often feel abstract, framed around borders, politics, or national identity. However, the effects of immigration policy appear in much more ordinary places. They show up in how long it takes to see a doctor, how quickly homes get built, how much groceries cost, and whether local businesses can find workers to stay open.

That is why the idea of a zero- or net-zero immigration policy warrants closer attention, particularly in a state such as North Carolina, which has grown rapidly and is now aging concurrently.

Growth Has Been Doing More Work Than People Realize

Over the past several decades, North Carolina’s population growth has been primarily driven by net migration. Some arrive from other states. Others arrive from other countries. Together, those two streams have fueled job growth, housing demand, tax revenues, and school enrollment.

When immigration slows, the state does not simply stop growing. It begins to change shape. The workforce gets older. Fewer workers are available to support a rising number of retirees. The pressure does not arrive all at once, but it builds steadily across the economy.

That pattern has played out elsewhere, and it tends to appear first in the labor market.

When Workers Disappear, Jobs Often Do Too

There is a persistent belief that fewer immigrants automatically means more jobs for people already here. In reality, many of the jobs most affected by reductions in immigration are not readily filled by other workers.

In North Carolina, immigrant labor is deeply embedded in construction sites, farms, food processing plants, manufacturing floors, restaurants, hotels, and healthcare facilities. These are often physically demanding, shift-based, or rural jobs with limited local labor pools.

When those workers are no longer available, employers rarely respond by simply raising wages and filling positions. Instead, projects slow or stop. Businesses reduce hours. Some automate. Others close.

The result is not a cleaner job market. It is a smaller one.

Wages Can Rise Without Households Getting Ahead

Labor shortages do push wages up in specific roles, particularly in construction and service work. But wage gains are only part of the story.

As labor becomes more difficult to find, businesses raise prices to offset higher costs. Homebuilders pass higher labor costs into home prices. Farmers pass them into food prices. Healthcare systems pass them into insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs.

For many households, modest wage increases are overwhelmed by higher expenses across nearly every category. The math works against them.

Housing Is Where the Pressure Becomes Hard to Ignore

Housing is often discussed as a demand problem, but supply is equally important. In North Carolina, immigrants make up a significant share of the construction workforce responsible for building and maintaining homes.

If that workforce shrinks, fewer homes get built. Projects take longer. Repairs become more expensive and more complicated to schedule. Infrastructure improvements are delayed.

Even if population growth slows, housing does not necessarily become more affordable. Supply tightens faster than demand, particularly in fast-growing regions such as the Triangle and Charlotte areas. Prices rise not because more people are arriving, but because fewer homes are being completed.

Healthcare Feels the Impact Quickly

Healthcare staffing is already strained across much of the state, particularly in rural areas. Immigrants are overrepresented among physicians, nurses, home health aides, and medical support staff.

A net-zero immigration policy would hit healthcare capacity at the same time the population is aging, and demand for care is rising. That combination leads to longer wait times, fewer available providers, and higher costs.

For residents, this manifests as difficulty accessing primary care, longer emergency room wait times, and higher insurance premiums. For rural hospitals, it can threaten basic viability.

Schools and Universities Shrink Before They Collapse

In public schools, slower population growth results in gradual enrollment declines, particularly in rural districts. Because funding often follows students, those districts face budget pressure, staffing reductions, and school consolidations.

At the university level, international students play a significant role in tuition revenue and research activity. When those students disappear, programs shrink. Staff positions are cut. Research slows.

The education system does not fail outright. It simply becomes smaller, more constrained, and less flexible.

Household Finances Take a Cumulative Hit

For most families, the effects of a zero-immigration policy would not feel dramatic in any single moment. They would feel cumulative.

Grocery bills rise. Rent goes up faster than income. Healthcare costs increase. Childcare becomes harder to find. Service delays become routine. Job options narrow, particularly for households that rely on two incomes or flexible work arrangements.

Over time, households experience greater instability, even if they are working just as hard.

Legal and Undocumented Immigration Play Different Roles

Legal immigrants are especially prominent in healthcare, universities, engineering, and entrepreneurship. Reducing legal immigration primarily affects hospitals, research institutions, and long-term economic growth.

Undocumented immigrants are more concentrated in construction, agriculture, food processing, and service work. Removing that labor produces immediate shortages and faster price increases in housing, food, and everyday services.

The pathways differ. The economic outcome is similar: fewer workers, higher costs, and weaker local capacity.

Other Countries Offer a Preview

Countries that have sharply limited immigration provide valuable lessons. Japan’s experience shows how aging populations and labor shortages can lock economies into decades of slow growth. The United Kingdom experienced food shortages and service disruptions following restrictions on labor mobility. Australia experienced housing and labor shocks when borders closed during the pandemic.

In each case, governments eventually adjusted course, not because of ideology, but because the economic strain became unavoidable.

The Bottom Line for North Carolina

A zero or net-zero immigration policy would not reset North Carolina’s economy. It would slowly constrict it.

Growth would slow. Housing would become harder to build. Healthcare would become harder to access. Rural areas would weaken further. Everyday costs would rise faster than wages. Household finances would feel tighter, not freer.

Immigration policy can be reformed and enforced. But eliminating immigration would function less like protection and more like self-imposed scarcity in a state that depends on workers to keep growing, caring, and building.

Why it matters: These effects do not stay on spreadsheets. They appear in daily life, in costs, access, and opportunities. Understanding that connection helps move the conversation from slogans to consequences, and from theory to lived experience.

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About the writer.

Christian A. Hendricks is the publisher and founder of Holly Springs Update, a local news publication covering Holly Springs, NC, and its surrounding area. From time to time, he shares his thoughts and opinions on national, regional, and state interests. He can be reached via email at christian.hendricks@hollyspringsupdate.com.

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