Billionaire Elon Musk took a trip to the southern border in Texas Thursday and warned “some pretty extreme” migrants are crossing into the US as he offered an “unfiltered” view of the ongoing crisis.
Musk — the owner of X, formerly of Twitter — was accompanied by Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales during his visit to Eagle Pass, a city that declared a state of emergency last week over the unprecedented arrival of thousands of migrants.
Wearing a cowboy hat and aviator sunglasses, Musk livestreamed his first hand observations and told Gonzales that while he is “extremely pro-immigrant,” he doesn’t believe people should be allowed to enter the US if they are “breaking the law.”
“To be clear we’re both very much in favor of expanded legal immigration. I think anyone who is hardworking and honest and is really gonna add to … the economy, we should let them in,” Musk said.
“But what we’re seeing here are in some cases some pretty extreme individuals coming through … obviously not suggesting everyone is like this.”
Musk then mentioned how he heard a man hopped the border with facial tattoos, including tears drops, which he said “means they have murdered someone and they are so proud of having murdered someone that they tattoo — one tear on their face for every one person that they killed.”
“That’s exactly right,” Gonzales — whose district covers hundreds of miles along the border — replied when Musk asked if that was correct.
The flow of people coming to the country is so large that Musk said it is “leading to a collapse of social services where even America’s largest city, New York, is buckling under the pressure of just how many illegal immigrants are going to New York.”
“If New York can’t handle it, well pretty much no part of the country can,” Musk continued. “So if we don’t do something soon we’re just gonna have, like I said, a collapse in social services as we’re already seeing in New York.”
More than 100,000 migrants have reached NYC since last year, straining city services and finances.
About 11,000 migrants crossed into the US from Mexico from Sunday to Monday alone, the “single highest day in recent memory,” Fox News reported. About 4,000 crossed at Eagle Pass, including some who crawled through razor wire and waded through the Rio Grande.
Statistics published by The Post show that 1.23 million migrants have crossed the southern border seeking asylum in the past 11 months, according to data analyzed by the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
Musk, a South African native who noted he was an immigrant, also spoke with law enforcement during the visit about the border, though he had trouble at one point while videotaping the scene.
One of Musk’s videos appeared to cut short due to technical difficulties after he wondered if he was still streaming live on the social network.
“I was a bit worried that this might – so many people might go on it that it crashes. Maybe not working anymore, let’s see.” Musk said moments before the screen went dark.
When he got back, he said the cell connection wasn’t good.
“It’d be helpful to have some Starlink perhaps,” he said in reference to his satellite constellation from Space X that expands broadband internet.