Elon Musk and former college swim star Riley Gaines are calling for faster legal avenues for immigration.
Gaines seconded Musk’s comments, revealing that her own immigrant husband Louis Barker has been waiting two years for a green card.
The Tesla and Twitter boss said his frequent complaints about the migrant crisis led to him being accused of being ‘anti-immigrant’.
However, he explained that as an immigrant himself – being born in South Africa and moving to the US for university – ‘nothing could be further from the truth’.
‘I am very much in favor of increased and expedited legal immigration for anyone who is talented, hard-working and honest,’ he wrote on Twitter.
‘It is bizarrely difficult and agonizingly slow to immigrate to the USA legally, but trivial and fast to enter illegally! This obviously makes no sense.’
College swim star Riley Gaines revealing that her own immigrant husband Louis Barker has been waiting two years for a green card
Elon Musk said his frequent complaints about the migrant crisis led to him being accused of being ‘anti-immigrant’, but he actually wanted more of it through proper channels
About 10,000 migrants were crossing the border and surrendering to authorities to claim asylum every day at the height of the crisis over the New Year
Musk moved to Canada aged 18 and got citizenship there via his mother, and a few years later studied at the University of Pennsylvania, then came to Silicon Valley.
Gaines reposted Musk’s tweet with enthusiastic agreement. She didn’t directly comment on the border crisis, but has denounced it in the past.
‘My husband is an immigrant. We’ve been married for nearly two years and he still doesn’t have his green card,’ she wrote.
Barker, 24, grew up in the UK and met Gaines when they were both swimmers at the University of Kentucky.
Musk’s tweet drew a misleading equivalence between the thousands of asylum-seekers crossing the border every day, and the process of acquiring US permanent residency.
Migrants who cross the border and surrender to authorities are largely allowed to stay in the US, but only until their asylum claims are heard.
Should their claim be denied, they are deported back to their country of origin. If accepted, they would face the same lengthy process as Gaines’ husband to get a green card.
The problem is the process takes months, or years, due to bottlenecks in the system, even more so with the migrant surge of the past 18 months.
Gaines reposted Musk’s tweet with enthusiastic agreement, revealing that her immigrant husband was frustrated waiting for his green card
Migrants cross the Rio Grande river to surrender to the American authorities in El Paso, Texas
President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address that the bipartisan immigration bill hammered out in the Senate would slash processing times to six months, or even six weeks.
However, the legislation was killed in the Republican-controlled House at the urging of Donald Trump, who wanted to use the issue against Biden in the election campaign.
The bill would, if implemented in practice as Biden promised in his speech, speed up avenues for legal immigration as Musk and Gaines called for.
Musk has in recent days accused Democrats of sitting on their hands over the border crisis as part of a long-term strategy to improve their electoral fortunes.
‘Until the loss of votes from ushering in vast numbers of illegal immigrants exceeds the likely gain of votes over time (as they are gradually legalized), the Democratic Party has a strong incentive to maximize illegal immigration,’ he wrote.
At least 4.35 million migrants have entered Texas since 2021, according to US Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of the US Border Patrol. These number reflect only those who have been stopped by federal agents, not so-called ‘gotaways’ or illegal immigrants who were not taken into custody
In another post, he claimed the crisis was likely to lead to a major terrorist attack.
‘This administration is both importing voters and creating a national security threat from unvetted illegal immigrants,’ he wrote.
‘It is highly probable that the groundwork is being laid for something far worse than 9/11. Just a matter of time.’
Musk expanded on this on Friday, criticizing Democrats for unanimously opposing a bill that wouldn’t count migrants in population numbers used to determine the number of Congress seats and electoral votes each state had.
‘Since illegals are mostly in Democrat states, both the House and the Presidential vote are shifted ~5% to the left, which is enough to change the entire balance of power!’ he wrote.
‘This is a major reason why the Biden Administration is ushering in record levels of illegals and doing so few deportations.’
Musk also responded to Biden’s admission that 325,000 migrants were flown in to the US by the government, to ease pressure on the border.
He called it ‘treason’ and again accused Democrats of ‘importing voters’.
‘This is why groups on the far left fight so hard to stop voter ID requirements, under the absurd guise of protecting the right to vote,’ he wrote.
It was not clear whether he was claiming Democrats were encouraging voter fraud by non-citizen immigrants, by opposing ID requirements.
The flying of migrants into the US was part of the longstanding ‘humanitarian parole’ and applies to Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.
These migrants, capped at 30,000 a month, must pass a background check and have a sponsor in the US, and are able to get work permits.
‘Humanitarian parole does not provide any permanent pathway to remain in the US and can be revoked or not renewed should DHS decide that it is no longer warranted or if the beneficiary violates the conditions of the parole,’ the American Immigration Council explained.
Musk also responded to Biden’s admission that 325,000 migrants were flown in to the US by the government, to ease pressure on the border
Texas has bused more than 105,000 migrants to so-called sanctuary cities since 2022, the governor’s office announced Friday
All these migrants applied through designated channels, and did not cross the border or they would be ineligible for the program.
About 10,000 migrants were crossing the border and surrendering to authorities to claim asylum every day at the height of the crisis over the New Year.
Texas has bore the brunt of the crossings, particularly at Eagle Pass, and Governor Gregg Abbott responded by sending 105,000 and counting to Democratic-run ‘sanctuary cities’ like New York, Chicago, and Denver.
Most of the the migrants are Venezuelans, seven million of whom fled political turmoil and violence in their country in recent years.