Did Biden commit treason? Dissecting Elon Musk's public meltdown

Elon Musk in Krakow, Poland on January 22nd, 2024. (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

On Tuesday, billionaire Elon Musk told his 175 million followers on X that President Biden had committed "treason" by "secretly" flying "320,000 illegal immigrants" from Latin America to US airports. 

It is quite a dramatic claim. The only problem is that nearly everything Musk said is a lie. 

Musk was responding to information from Collin Rugg, the co-owner of a right-wing news aggregation site called Trending Politics. Rugg's post references a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) about a program expanding humanitarian parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. CIS is an anti-immigrant think tank co-founded by eugenicist and racist John Tanton. 

First, nothing about the expanded humanitarian parole program is "secret." Biden announced it in a White House speech on January 5, 2023:

The way this parole program works: One must have a lawful sponsor here in the United States who agrees to sponsor you to get here… Then, that person has to… undergo rigorous background checks and apply from outside the United States and not cross the border illegally in the meantime. If they apply and their application is approved, they can use the same app, the CBP One app, to present at a port of entry and be able to work in the United States legally for two years. That’s the process.

…Today I’m announcing that my administration is going to expand the parole program for people not only from Venezuela but from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti.

The program was then detailed in a White House press release. The release specifies that the program allows "up to 30,000 individuals per month from these four countries." To qualify, individuals must have an  "eligible sponsor and pass vetting and background checks." Those admitted through the program "can come to the United States for a period of two years and receive work authorization." The program was then described in further detail in another press release issued the same day by the Department of Homeland Security. 

The announcement received widespread press coverage in major media outlets, including the Washington Post and the New York Times. Today, the program is featured on the home page of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website:

Musk is also amazed that the Biden administration was able to keep the program secret when it involved chartering thousands of planes, flying to dozens of airports. 

The reason why no one noticed all the planes chartered by the Biden administration is that they don't exist. Under the terms of the parole program, individuals are required to purchase their own flights to the United States. "If the beneficiary has been authorized to travel to the United States, they must arrange and fund their own travel," the USCIS website states. "Beneficiaries must arrange to fly to the United States by air directly to an interior port of entry and their final destination."

While Musk says this program constitutes "treason," it is fully within Biden's legal authority. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security can "in his discretion parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe only on a case‐​by‐​case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit any alien applying for admission to the United States." Federal courts have found that parole determinations are not subject to judicial review. Every president has used parole authority since it was established in 1952, except Trump.  

Musk says the immigrants admitted under the program are a national security threat — "[i]t is highly probable that the groundwork is being laid for something far worse than 9/11" — because they are "unvetted." This is also false. The program requires all individuals to "[u]ndergo and pass required national security and public safety vetting."

Despite Musk's claims, individuals entering the United States under this program are doing so legally. And they are not eligible to vote. The notion that migrants are voting in meaningful numbers is not grounded in fact. A study by the Brennan Center for Justice evaluating 23.5 million votes across 12 states in 2016 found 30 incidents of suspected non-citizen voting, 0.0001% of the 2016 vote in those jurisdictions. A 2022 audit of Georgia voting rolls found about 1600 noncitizens attempting to register to vote over a 25-year period, and no non-citizens were actually allowed to register or vote. 

Playing the hits

“Secretive” migrant flights have been the focus of similar outcries in years past. Ahead of the 2022 midterms, multiple Republicans accused the Biden administration of organizing “ghost flights” of migrants. Republican Tyler Kistner, who ran for Congress in Minnesota, said that Biden “has been secretly flying illegal immigrants into communities across the country in the middle of the night.” Representative Ashley Hinson (R-IA) claimed the government was “flying illegal immigrants from the border into our country in the dead of night.” And former Congressman Lou Barletta (R-PA), in his bid for governor of Pennsylvania, blamed Biden for “hid[ing] secret ghost flights of illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, politicians in Florida, Texas, New York, Alabama, and North Dakota also fomented panic over migrant flights.

These claims, however, were highly misleading. Most of the flights targeted by the right carried unaccompanied minors who, under federal law, cannot be held by Border Patrol for more than 72 hours. The goal of these flights is to connect children with their parents, relatives or, in some cases, a licensed program. Experts say that it’s extremely unlikely that adults with unauthorized immigration status were aboard these flights. The mix-up, a 2022 Washington Post fact-check explained, could have been due to the fact that there are separate flights that carry adults in ICE custody to “different detention facilities.”

Regardless, both types of transports are routine and were carried out under Trump. According to the Washington Post, “in 2019, the Trump administration sought a private contractor who could transport 225,000 migrants across the country to temporary shelters, because of overcrowding at the border.”

The truth about the app

Musk’s posts also target the CBP One App and misrepresent its functions. To Musk, the app is evidence of an “open border.” The reality, however, is that the app limits the number of people who can immigrate.

Launched in 2020 by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the app has several purposes. At the southern border, asylum seekers must use the app to schedule appointments at a Port of Entry. Most migrants who don't use the app are turned away. Critics have highlighted many issues with the app, including the fact that there are more individuals seeking asylum each day than there are available appointment slots. Some advocates have accused the app of being “unlawful because migrants are allowed to seek asylum anyway on U.S. soil.” 

In addition, the app is also used for the parole process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. (This is the well-publicized program Musk claimed was "secret.") These individuals can use the app to “request advance authorization to travel to an airport in the United States to seek a discretionary grant of parole,” CBP’s website states. 

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a policy director at the American Immigration Council, explained that the app is just one component of the process. An individual using the app would still need to secure a sponsor who can “submit evidence that they are able to financially sponsor the person coming on parole,” Reichlin-Melnick said. A CBP agent will still inspect the individual upon arrival. The process is limited to 30,000 individuals per month, chosen at random. Everyone else is out of luck. Reichlin-Melnick says publicly available data shows the program has helped slow irregular entries by individuals from eligible countries.