• The housing world is in for another lackluster spring selling season as tariff fears and more weigh on homebuilders and would-be buyers. The wealthy are the only silver lining in the housing market—and even that may change.

Zonda chief economist Ali Wolf felt optimistic about one thing in particular when President Donald Trump was elected: He understood real estate. So when homebuilders asked her about tariffs in January, she told them she couldn’t imagine a real-estate-savvy president would place taxes on building materials when housing is so unaffordable for many Americans, something he promised to fix on the campaign trail. Then, in March, Trump did exactly that, placing tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. Tariffs on imported lumber could come in April.

“I was wrong,” Wolf told Fortune.

In a matter of months, Wolf went from feeling somewhat hopeful about the housing market when it comes to builders, buyers, and sales, to gloomy. She still believes the housing world is fine. It won’t burst into flames. But she does have her concerns. And the policy whirlwind America is caught in is mostly to blame. 

Zonda’s surveys routinely ask builders what’s holding buyers back. In March, builders said affordability, which has been the top answer for a while because home prices increased 45% in the past five years and mortgage rates are a far cry away from their pandemic lows. The next answer: Would-be buyers are sitting on the sidelines because there is no rush to buy. The third answer, however, is one Wolf hasn’t seen in a very long time: Consumers are concerned about the economy, jobs, and their visa status. 

“It’s freaking people out,” Wolf said of uncertainty. 

Earlier this month, the S&P 500 slipped into correction territory on the back of on-again, off-again tariffs, and there are mass layoffs occurring in the federal government, so consumer sentiment is plummeting as a result. In housing, it’s tariff and immigration policy that keeps people on their toes. 

“We’re very worried about tariffs,” Wolf said, because they can induce higher costs and have done so in the past. 

Tariffs are a tax on imported goods, so builders see an extra cost on products they tend to purchase from other countries. If they shift their supply chains to buy locally, it’ll cost them, too, because goods produced in the U.S. aren’t as cheap. In either scenario, the expectation is builders will pass on the additional costs to buyers. So far, the Trump administration has either threatened, plans to, or placed tariffs on lumber, aluminum, and steel—all used in the construction of homes. More than half of builders in the latest survey said the total cost of building a home is higher than last year. And still, there is a fear that tariff pain might not be totally felt until next year, potentially in a worsening economy, Wolf said. 

When it comes to immigration, builders have not seen a substantial change to their construction workforce at this point, despite promises of mass deportations made by the Trump administration. However, they are nervous and are monitoring the situation. Still, it goes beyond labor. Anyone worried about their immigration status either now or in the next four years will think twice about buying a home, she pointed out. In a recent earnings call, $30 billion homebuilder Lennar mentioned consumer confidence slipped, and that it was keeping an eye on any impact tariffs or deportations might have on its bottom line.

All things considered, it appears the housing market is set for another lackluster spring selling season. 

The only silver lining is the wealthy, and even that may change. High-end buyers who can purchase homes in cash haven’t felt the same pain of high mortgage rates. Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers recently mentioned in an earnings call more than 70% of its business is from wealthy move-ups and empty nesters with years of home price appreciation, and the rest are rich millennials.

But they could pull back because of all the uncertainty and malaise. “They have the money,” Wolf said. “Their money has not gone away. Their home is still worth a lot. Their stocks are still worth a lot. But what has changed is just their sentiment on the market.”

The housing market has been at a post-pandemic standstill—and in a perfect world, lower mortgage rates, a predictable stock market, and confident consumers would fix it, Wolf explained.

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A Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University has been detained by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents without explanation, her lawyer said Wednesday.

Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home in Somerville on Tuesday night when she was stopped, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition filed in Boston federal court.

Video obtained by The Associated Press appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Ozturk’s phone as she yells and is handcuffed.

“We’re the police,” members of the group are heard saying in the video.

A man is heard asking, “Why are you hiding your faces?”

Khanbabai said Ozturk, who is Muslim, was meeting friends for iftar, a meal that breaks a fast at sunset during Ramadan.

“We are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her. No charges have been filed against Rumeysa to date that we are aware of,” Khanbabai said in a statement. Ozturk has a visa allowing her to study in the United States, Khanbabai said.

‘This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation’

Neighbors said they were rattled by the arrest, which happened at 5:30 p.m. on a residential block.

“It looked like a kidnapping,” said Michael Mathis, a 32-year-old software engineer whose surveillance camera captured the arrest. “They approach her and start grabbing her with their faces covered. They’re covering their faces. They’re in unmarked vehicles.”

Tufts University President Sunil Kumar said in a statement that the school learned that authorities detained an international graduate student and the student’s visa had been terminated.

“The university had no pre-knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities prior to the event,” Kumar said.

Kumar did not name the student, but university spokesperson Patrick Collins confirmed that Ozturk is a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley called the arrest “a horrifying violation of Rumeysa’s constitutional rights to due process and free speech.”

“She must be immediately released,” Pressley said in a statement. “We won’t stand by while the Trump Administration continues to abduct students with legal status and attack our fundamental freedoms.”

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell called the video “disturbing.”

“Based on what we now know, it is alarming that the federal administration chose to ambush and detain her, apparently targeting a law-abiding individual because of her political views,” she said. “This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinized in court.”

Court says not to remove Ozturk from the state, but she is listed as being held in Louisiana

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued an order giving the government until Friday to answer why Ozturk was being detained. Talwani also ordered that Ozturk not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without 48 hours advance notice.

But as of Wednesday evening, the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s online detainee locator system listed her as being held at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana.

A senior DHS spokesperson confirmed Ozturk’s detention and the termination of her visa.

“DHS and (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans. A visa is a privilege, not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is common sense security,” the spokesperson told the AP.

Ozturk cowrote article criticizing university response to Palestinian issues

Ozturk was one of four students last March who wrote an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing the university’s response to its community union Senate passing resolutions that demanded Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.

Friends said Ozturk was not otherwise closely involved in protests against Israel. But after the piece was published, her name, photo and work history were featured by Canary Mission, a website that says it documents people who “promote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.” The op-ed was the only cited example of “anti-Israel activism” by Ozturk.

Students and faculty elsewhere also have recently had visas revoked or been blocked from entering the U.S. because they attended demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians. President Donald Trump ‘s administration has cited a seldom-invoked statute authorizing the secretary of state to revoke visas of noncitizens who could be considered a threat to foreign policy interests.

Supporters rally in Somerville

Hundreds of people demonstrated in a park later Wednesday, with speaker after speaker demanding her release and accusing both major political parties of failing to protect immigrants and stand up for Palestinians.

“Free Rumeysa Ozturk now,” the crowd chanted, along with traditional protest slogans such as “Free, free Palestine.” Many held Palestinian flags and homemade signs supporting her and opposing ICE.

Zoi Andalcio, a Somerville business owner, said he came out with his wife and 3-year-old son to speak against the “maddening” arrest of Ozturk and others.

“I’m outraged like everybody else about these disappearances, kidnappings of legal noncitizens, who may or may not have spoken out against the atrocious foreign policy of the United States government,” Andalcio said.

Roz Nazzaro, who held a sign that read “Hands Off,” said she fears the country is heading into an era of “Nazism” in which jpeople ust disappear.

“There is no distinction between undocumented immigrants, documented immigrants, green cards,” said Nazzaro, a retired college administrator from Winchester, Massachusetts. “It’s going to be the citizens next, if you’re the wrong color, wear a hijab.”

‘She’s never spoken badly to anyone’

Before attending Tufts, Ozturk obtained a master’s from the Developmental Psychology program at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York, according to an alumni spotlight article in 2021.

Reyyan Bilge, a psychology professor at Northeastern University and friend, described Ozturk as a “soft spoken, kind and gentle soul,” deeply focused on research and not closely involved in the campus protests.

The two first met at Istanbul Sehir University, where Bilge supervised her thesis, before working on cognitive research and publishing papers together. They remained close after Ozturk arrived in the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship in 2018.

“Over the 10 years I’ve known her, she’s never spoken badly to anyone else, let alone being antisemitic or racist,” Bilge said.

Turkish diplomats contact State Department and ICE

The Turkish Embassy in Washington said it was keeping in regular contact with Ozturk’s family, monitoring the situation closely and engaged in “initiatives” with the State Department and ICE.

It added in a statement on the social platform X that it was making “every effort” to provide consular services and legal support to protect its citizens’ rights.

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• In today’s CEO Daily: Sharon Goldman talks about quantum computing with D-Wave CEO Alan Baratz.
• The big story: Trump imposes 25% tariffs on auto products starting April 2.
• The markets: Fear up, stocks down.
• Analyst notes from Panmure Liberum on Germany’s stimulus package, JPMorgan on AI in China, Convera on the declining U.S. dollar, Goldman Sachs on inflation.
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning. Quantum computing has long been touted as having the potential to solve problems in minutes that would take today’s best supercomputers thousands or even millions of years to crack. While that may sound like a dream to many CEOs, as the quantum industry has grown over the past decade, so too has the debate over its ability. Does the tech offer a chance to provide companies with real-world breakthroughs or are claims of “quantum supremacy,” and its vast superiority to traditional computing, just hype?

The quantum question hit new heights in January at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said “very useful” quantum computers are likely 15 to 30 years away, leading to a stock tumble in the space. “I was quite disappointed in him,” said Alan Baratz, CEO of quantum company D-Wave. “He just kind of lumped all quantum together.”

In a sign that Huang wanted to make amends with the industry, Nvidia’s March GTC conference featured the first “Quantum Day”—and D-Wave’s Baratz participated in one of the panels. But while Huang may have wanted to soothe rattled investors, quantum stocks still fell after the event—including D-Wave. 

I had the chance to sit down with Baratz as the company (which was founded in 1999 and went public via a SPAC merger in 2022), made its own quantum supremacy claim. It published a new paper in the journal Science in mid-March, which showed it had completed a virtual experiment on a quantum computer to see how a material’s atoms and molecules would behave in the real world. It said a traditional computer could not have completed the simulation. 

I came away from our conversation surprised by the complex nuances of the quantum computing debate. Here are three takeaways for business leaders:

• One form of quantum has already become commercialized. D-Wave focuses on a kind of quantum computing called “annealing” that works well for optimization problems like determining vehicle routes and employee scheduling. Clients include Japan’s NTT Docomo and Canada’s Pattison Food Group. 
  
• Quantum and AI will work together for companies. Baratz says that quantum and AI often solve different parts of the same problem. For example, generative AI might predict future product demand, while quantum could optimize the supply chain to meet that demand. A quantum computer could also potentially train AI models more quickly.
  
  We won’t see the full promise of quantum for a while. Most quantum companies focus on more universal quantum technology that is “gate-based,” where complex commands are run in a sequence, Baratz explained. While this can potentially solve a broader range of problems than D-Wave’s annealing, it is also very sensitive to errors and will likely take many years to commercialize.
  
  More news below.
  
  Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

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