Politics
Elon Musk shared a video of Barack Obama on Monday, in which the former president said the United States “cannot allow half a million people to flood” into the country illegally.
Musk said on X: “Now, 10 times more people a year are pouring over the border, as Obama put it.”
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Fact Check: “Correct Attribution”
Some have questioned the validity of the clip. They wondered if it was real or perhaps taken out of context.
So Snopes fact-checked it.
It’s legit.
From Snopes, “On March 10, 2024, an archive video of former US President Barack Obama speaking about immigration issues, purportedly from 2009, went viral. The captions highlighted Obama’s words: “We can’t have half a million people pouring over the border.”
“The video was shared by Elon Musk and others,” Snopes noted. “One user on X said: ‘About 7 years later these same positions were deemed racist and xenophobic by Democrats.’
The story continued: “Obama actually said the above words. While the caption focuses on him talking about the “half a million people pouring over the border,” Obama had more to add. He said new migrants should learn English and “earn” citizenship, adding that the government must “deal” with current undocumented immigrants in a “humane way.”
“We therefore consider this statement to be a correct attribution,” Snopes concluded.
Obama’s border claim
Here are Obama’s words in context using their emphasis.
In the video, Obama can be heard saying the following (emphasis added):
So it won’t be a free trip. It won’t be an immediate amnesty. What will happen is that you will pay a significant fine. You will learn English. You’ll go… you’ll go to the back of the line so you don’t get ahead of someone who was in Mexico City applying legally. But after doing these things for a certain period of time you can earn citizenship, so it’s not something guaranteed or automatic. You have to earn it. But over time you give people an opportunity.
Now, however, it only works if you do all the pieces. I think the American people appreciate and believe in immigration. But they cannot accept a situation where half a million people pour over the border without any kind of mechanism to control it. So we have to address this issue at the same time that we deal humanely with the people who are putting down roots here, who have become our neighbors, who have become our friends, who may have children who are U.S. citizens. This is the kind of comprehensive approach we need to take.
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Musk is right
As for Musk’s claim that there is more illegal immigration today, the Associated Press reported in January: “Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico hit an all-time high in December since the numbers were released monthly, authorities said Friday, exposing a growing vulnerability for President Joe Biden in his campaign for a second term.”
“The Border Patrol recorded 249,785 apprehensions at the Mexican border in December, up 31% from 191,112 in November and 13% from 222,018 in December 2022, the previous all-time high,” the AP added.
And that’s just the number of illegal migrants encountered or arrested. How many others entered the country undetected?
We have a serious border problem, something Barack Obama was right about many years ago.
