Billionaire Elon Musk called out President Joe Biden for waiting on a bipartisan Senate deal to shut down the southern border, saying the president has the authority to do so by means of an executive order.
“No laws need to be passed,” Musk wrote on X. “All that is needed is an executive order to require proof before granting an asylum hearing. That is how it used to be.”
Musk’s comment was in response to a statement from Biden, who said Friday night he would “shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed” if Congress gives him that emergency authority under the border deal. In October, Biden requested Congress to approve funding for securing the border in a legislative package that includes an additional 1,300 Border Patrol agents, 375 immigration judges, 1,600 asylum officers, and more than 100 inspection machines to detect fentanyl.
Negotiations for the border deal continue as Republicans and Democrats in the Senate fail to reach an agreement for both border security and Ukraine aid.
“Securing the border through these negotiations is a win for America,” Biden said. “For everyone who is demanding tougher border control, this is the way to do it. If you’re serious about the border crisis, pass a bipartisan bill and I will sign it.”
The president’s hopes for such a bipartisan agreement were quashed by Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), who said earlier Friday that, if rumors about its details were true, the deal would have been “dead on arrival” in the House.
Musk went on to elaborate that a border wall is not necessary to solve the migrant crisis. Rather, the blame rests on Border Patrol agents under the direction of Biden’s Department of Homeland Security, he said.
“Building a wall is a red herring. No wall is needed to fix this situation,” Musk commented on X. “Border Patrol is being instructed to facilitate illegal entry at scale into the United States. The fundamental problem is that anyone can claim asylum with zero proof, which means all of Earth can come to America.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported on Friday its agents encountered 302,034 migrants at the southern border for the month of December, an all-time high that broke previous records. The latest monthly update comes as Texas continues fighting the Biden administration and defying the Supreme Court over the constitutional right to secure its border.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court issued a temporary order giving federal agents the ability to cut the concertina wire that Texas installed along the U.S.–Mexico border as part of its illegal-immigration countermeasure, Operation Lone Star. The federal government’s lawsuit against Texas is still pending, which is why the order is temporary.
Shortly after Texas governor Greg Abbott pledged the state will defend and protect itself from a record surge of illegal immigrants, 25 other Republican governors signed a letter vowing to stand in solidarity with Texas. Those states included the following: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
The only Republican governor that did not sign the statement was Phil Scott of Vermont.