Elon Musk toured the U.S. southern border in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Thursday as illegal aliens continue to stream across the border.
Musk, the tech mogul and CEO of X, formerly known as Twitter, livestreamed portions of his trip, saying he wanted to show the “real story” of what is happening on the U.S. border with Mexico.
Sporting a black cowboy hat and sunglasses, Musk toured a section of the border about 145 miles west of San Antonio with Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas. Gonzales told Musk that “the folks who are coming over now are impoverished, they have no money, and they have nowhere to go … it’s a bad situation all the way around, and a large part of it is because the [Biden] administration is attracting these folks to come, knowing full well … it’s a dead-end road that they’re going down.”
“This sounds like complete madness,” Musk responded.
“It is,” Gonzales said. “Imagine if you have to live it every single day,” the Texas lawmaker said, adding that the concerning thing is the situation is now becoming “normal.”
“Normalizing insanity,” Musk said. “We’re living in a clown world here.”
Eagle Pass continues to face a flood of illegal aliens entering the community. Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas told Musk his city has a population of 28,000 people, but has had “over 19,000 people in the last about 10 days come in, so we don’t have the resources.”
Fox News reported Friday that Customs and Border Protection encountered 10,000 illegal aliens along the border in just 24 hours.
As an immigrant to the U.S. from South Africa, “I’m extremely pro-immigrant,” Musk said to those watching his video on X, adding he thinks that “we need a greatly expanded legal immigration system and that we should let anyone in the country who is hardworking and honest and will be a contributor to the United States. We should have expedited legal approval for anyone who sort of falls in that category.”
“But then, by the same token,” Musk continued, “we should also not be allowing people in the country if they’re breaking the law. That does not make sense. The law is there for a reason.”
Gonzales told Musk that the “biggest issue” is that Border Patrol agents are spending their time processing illegal aliens when they want to be out in the field “catching bad actors.”
If Border Patrol agents can return to patrolling the border, “then we keep America safe from fentanyl, from opioids, and some of these things that are killing all Americans,” Gonzales said.
CBP has seized more than 25,000 pounds of fentanyl on America’s borders since the start of fiscal 2023, and has encountered a record 2,860,127 illegal aliens on the nation’s border and at ports of entry.
Musk and Gonzales agreed it is important for Americans to understand that illegal aliens are streaming across America’s borders from all over the world. “This is an open border for all of Earth,” Musk said, while Gonzales nodded in agreement, adding that “this is an open border to 8 billion people.”
Musk appeared surprised to hear Gonzales say that 90% of the illegal aliens who cross the border do not qualify for asylum, and of those who do not qualify, “zero” are returned to their home country.
There are “no repercussions” for those who cross illegally, Gonzales told Musk, later adding that the situation is “getting worse.”
Sheriff Randy Brown of Medina County, Texas, just west of San Antonio, told Musk that the “open border policies from the White House” have “overrun” border communities.
“They don’t have a clue what’s going on here,” the sheriff said of the Biden administration, “because if they did, maybe they would care.”
Communities across the country are feeling the strain of illegal immigration, especially cities such as New York, which have been overwhelmed with illegal aliens arriving daily.
The migrant crisis “will destroy” New York City, Mayor Eric Adams said during a September town hall meeting.
Musk told those watching on X that “If New York can’t handle” the influx of illegal aliens, “pretty much no part of the country can.”
“If we don’t do something soon,” he said there will be a “collapse in social services as we’re already seeing in New York.”
Simon Hankinson, senior research fellow for the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, praised Musk’s trip to the border, telling The Daily Signal that the CEO’s “willingness to shed light on this issue is fantastic.” (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
“Unfortunately, American media has been undermined in the past decade by woke, weak journalists and publishers who intentionally downplay or distort issues like immigration, gender, and crime in service of their own ideology,” Hankinson said. “They don’t cover the border crisis because they don’t want the American people … to understand how bad things are right now,” he said.
“Musk has been willing to challenge this ‘woke mind virus,’ and his massive platform gives him enormous influence,” Hankinson said.
The three videos Musk recorded from the border and shared on his X page have earned more than 125 million views in less than 24 hours.
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