US President Joe Biden is reportedly considering a plan to grant green cards to millions of undocumented immigrants
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has accused the US Democratic Party of opening the country’s borders in order to “import voters.” According to a recent report from Politico, President Joe Biden is weighing offering permanent residency to millions of undocumented immigrants.
Commenting on the issue, Musk stated on his X platform that “The Dem Party goal is to import voters.”
According to Politico’s sources, Biden is considering expanding access to the US’ so-called ‘Cancellation of Removal Program’ for undocumented immigrants who have lived in the US for more than ten years and whose removal would negatively impact their citizen or resident friends and relatives.
The program is currently available to lawful residents who have been ordered to leave the US for various reasons, and for some undocumented immigrants. A successful cancellation can take years to make its way through the legal system, and around 4,000 cancellations of removal are granted each year, according to the US Justice Department.
There are thought to be around 10.5 million undocumented immigrants living in the US, according to figures compiled by Pew Research in 2021. However, at least 6.3 million more have entered the US in the years since, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security, potentially bringing the total to almost 18 million.
An earlier Pew report found that approximately two thirds of undocumented immigrants in the US had been there more than a decade. Counting only those immigrants present in the country in 2021, the removal program reportedly considered by Biden could result in around six million of them being made permanent residents.
Only US citizens can vote in federal elections. However, permanent residents can apply for citizenship after five years, or three years if married to a US citizen.
Biden’s first actions as US president included signing a raft of executive orders repealing almost all of former President Donald Trump’s immigration restrictions. He has since unsuccessfully lobbied Congress to pass a bill offering a path to citizenship for more than 10 million undocumented immigrants, and sued the state of Texas for attempting to enforce federal immigration law.
“Biden’s strategy is very simple,” Musk tweeted in February. “1. Get as many illegals in the country as possible. 2. Legalize them to create a permanent majority – a one-party state. That is why they are encouraging so much illegal immigration. Simple, yet effective.”
In the US, racial minorities typically vote Democrat. Aside from potentially creating future voters, undocumented immigration can give certain states greater representation in Congress, as the number of seats assigned to a state in the House of Representatives is determined by its overall population, which includes those present illegally.