Elon Musk pulled no punches in his attacks on Presiden Joe Biden and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, going so far as to accuse them of treason for the massive number of illegal immigrant crossings over the border, including a recent claim that the Biden Administration flew over 300,000 migrants into America. Musk tore into them on X in response to a tweet about the flights.
That claim, for reference, originated with the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which is generally in favor of restrictions on immigration. In the article, the author claims that CBP approved flights that brought in about 320,000 immigrants to the United States. Reporting on the claim, the AP said that the migrants receive work visas under the program, and Customs and Border Protection reported similar data on Jan. 26, claiming that 327,000 migrants were vetted and authorized for travel.
Under the program, migrants can enter the country if they pay their own way for the tickets, apply online, and have a financial sponsor. The program was created in January of 2023 and Biden’s authority for it comes from a 1952 law, the AP reports, that allows the president to admit people “only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” So far, about 67,000 Cubans, 53,000 Nicaraguans, 81,000 Venezuelans, and 126,000 Haitians have been let in under the program.
In any case, the CIS claim received much more attention when former President Donald Trump claimed, “Today it was announced that 325,000 people were flown in from parts unknown – migrants were flown in airplane, not going through borders … It was unbelievable. I said that must be a mistake. They flew 325,000 migrants. Flew them in over the borders and into our country.” That is somewhat untrue, as they are not “from parts unknown” but from countries of origin known from their online applications.
In any case, the news soon took off, with conservative X personality Collin Rugg posting, “REPORT: Joe Biden has secretly flown 320,000 illegal immigrants from Latin American airports to 43 U.S. cities. Treason. It gets even worse. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection is refusing to identify which airports they are being shipped to.”
Rugg quoted the CIS article as saying, “The program at the center of the FOIA litigation is perhaps the most enigmatic and least-known of the Biden administration’s uses of the CBP One cellphone scheduling app, even though it is responsible for almost invisibly importing by air 320,000 aliens with no legal right to enter the United States since it got underway in late 2022.” The quote continued, “Under these legally dubious parole programs, aliens who cannot legally enter the country use the CBP One app to apply for travel authorization and temporary humanitarian release from those airports. The parole program allows for two-year periods of legal status during which adults are eligible for work authorization.” Ending the quote, Rugg added, “Insane.”
Responding to Rugg’s tweet, Elon Musk said, “Treason indeed! Ushering in vast numbers of illegals is why Secretary Mayorkas was impeached by the House. They are 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.”
The AP, disputing Musk’s characterization of the program as being a voter-gathering scheme, said, “But people admitted into the country under parole have no path to citizenship. They can obtain work permits for a limited time but voters must be U.S. citizens.”
KJP, for her part, recently claimed that there is “no executive action” Biden could take to close down the border, though his choice to allow in migrants under this program indicates that there is significant room for him to use his executive powers and at least slow the flow into the country. Watch KJP here:
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