Musk Could Have US Citizenship Revoked If He Lied on Immigration Forms | Hacker News Reader

Musk Could Have US Citizenship Revoked If He Lied on Immigration Forms

wired.com

30 pointsbelter59 comments

He paid $11B in taxes in 2022, from what I could find. I don't see the US activity working to give that up, which would also send his multiple companies, some of which the government regularly does contracts with, to some other country. If they were to revoke it, I'm sure it would be a technicality and they'd give it right back to him.

The law is the law. He has no right to not be subject to the same laws as you or I. If we’ve done the same to other immigrants, it’s only fair that once the authorities are made aware of it that they investigate. No one should be able to buy themselves a carve out from the law. If the precedent is that nothing has really done about it in the past then do that as well, but no reason he should be above the law.

>If we’ve done the same to other immigrants...

I dont think citizenship has ever been taken away from another immigrant 30 years after the fact for working on a student visa.

There have only been a several hundred denaturalized immigrants in the history of the US, and they were for things like false identity with outstanding deportation orders.

> No one should be able to buy themselves a carve out from the law

Yet this is the reality as far back as I can remember. The gravity of that much wealth inevitably distorts the fabric of the legal system.

We've seen stuff like this play out over and over again among rich politicians, celebrities, CEOs etc. We also see it with wealthy businesses that cynically violate the law based on a favorable cost benefit analysis, not to mention their pervasive lobbying that literally defines the law. Even among the less affluent classes, we still see a stratification in practical impunity to break the law since e.g. it's a lot more tempting to speed if a speeding ticket is as trivial as a plane ticket. In our system, everything has a price.

However, if Musk was an illegal immigrant (yes, violating the terms of your visa is illegal, and it's the most common form of illegal immigration) I do think Musk's hypocrisy is quite disgusting. I can admit that if he were more humble and respectful of the immigrant experience he shares with those he maligns, I would be more sympathetic to him.

True, no way he gets deported but it's kind of ironic given him going on about the need to deport other illegal immigrants. I think the moral is US immigration is a mess and needs an overhaul.

> don't see the US activity working to give that up

It’s the law. Which means it’s an option. My takeaway is the law should be amended to include a statute of limitations. (More broadly, I'm not thrilled about how comfortable both parties have become around talking of stripping citizenship.)

I’ve never heard of any Democratic party leaders talk about stripping citizenship. Did I miss something?

> I’ve never heard of any Democratic party leaders talk about stripping citizenship

Fair enough, no leadership to my knowledge.

For that matter, I haven't heard any Republican party leaders taking about stripping Musk's citizenship, either.

> I haven't heard any Republican party leaders taking about stripping Musk's citizenship, either

DHS established a "denaturalisation task force" in 2018. Stripping Americans of citizenship

Sure. Did they (or anyone) say they were going to strip Musk of citizenship? (al_borland's original claim was specifically about Musk's citizenship, not citizenship in general.)

No, nobody real is talking about taking Musk’s citizenship. Hell, he hasn’t even lost his security clearance. Those are granted on the basis of executive order. It’s at the pleasure of the President. Nobody is going after Musk.

That was a trump campaign promise. Apparently they 10X'ed denaturalizations. So, I'd say that's in play.

Why would they talk about it? They’re the main beneficiaries of illegal immigration and its effects on long term voting outcomes.

In what ways are they the beneficiaries of illegal immigration? Illegal immigrants don’t vote, and their descendants are often conservative.

A nonzero number of illegal immigrants do vote. I don’t know if there is data on how often (my guess is it is rare). But when it is caught, the vote remains counted.

As for descendants, they vote mostly for democrats. I don’t have a source on hand but I’m sure it is easy to find. You can also look at data by ethnicity instead of immigration status to get an idea. Also this skews other parts of the political process, outside of the presidency.

> nonzero number of illegal immigrants do vote

This hypothesis has been tested. Lots of people have spent a lot of time and money on it. We have zero examples. The only voter fraud we have found is right wing idiots who don’t understand the electoral college.

Believing in voter fraud is not quite flat Earth stupid. But it’s close.

> As for descendants, they vote mostly for democrats

Racial depolarisation is the term you’re looking for. Young single men vote Trump. Also, whose donors do you think hire illegal workers? Who pushes back on strict liability for employers?

> This hypothesis has been tested. Lots of people have spent a lot of time and money on it. We have zero examples.

Literally this week: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/31/michigan-...

> Believing in voter fraud is not quite flat Earth stupid. But it’s close.

Blind faith is more like “flat Earth” to me. Does it make sense to have such confidence about every election on the planet? Or is America on a pedestal? Those other countries probably make the same claims about their alleged election integrity.

> Also, whose donors do you think hire illegal workers? Who pushes back on strict liability for employers?

I would ask to share your sources but why is this even relevant? Voter ID now. Closed borders now. Deportation for illegal immigrants now. No one buys the weird excuses conjured up by untrustworthy politicians and activists on this issue, not even them. It is clear who this status quo favors.

> Literally this week

N != 0, it’s less than 1/10^8 over multiple cycles. Which means zero examples in modern America of a national election being stolen through fraud.

> Blind faith

To the degree there is blind faith in this discussion it’s from the election deniers. Polls are heavily scrutinised by not only multiple layers of government, but also various outside groups, including the campaigns, as well as international bodies. One has to assume widespread conspiracy across those groups—and then be too lazy to observe a poll oneself—to conclude fraud. Not only forward looking, but worse, backward looking given the millions of dollars spent on hand recounting ballots in e.g. Arizona.

> Voter ID now

I vote in a state with a voter ID requirement. Maybe those who think these laws do something didn’t go to college. I can’t think of any other reason for the widespread amnesia around the prevalence and accessibility of fake IDs. (And you could vote with a cheap one, too. Nobody checks if they scan.)

> Closed borders now. Deportation for illegal immigrants now

About as relevant to election security as abortion and speed limits.

Re citizenship I would agree. Denaturalization is rare. The visa as a lesser issue compared to having Vlad as a chat buddy while owning Xitter. There are two problems with that: Not filing disclosure immediately gets your clearance yanked. Secondly, it could bring in FARA requirements, which is also incompatible with having a clearance.

Musk brother: "We were illegal immigrants."

Musk: "it was a gray area" while laughing.

Musk brother: “We WERE illegal immigrants.”

https://x.com/citizenwillis/status/1850232195476046198

https://youtu.be/ZMQ2r3ofn80?t=3

https://youtu.be/kCKPYxnHUYI?t=1305

Will WIRED be advocating the same penalty for everyone who has violated this law?

Odd that they've never turned this up before now, in all their previous reporting on Musk and his enterprises.

They are not advocating, they are reporting. Don't blame the messenger.

Are others violating this law having such an outsized influence on U.S. politics? Here, you have an illegal immigrant who has built multiple companies on the backs of billions of dollars of taxpayer money and uses it to spread misinformation, and you don't see a problem with that? It's basically terrorism.

I'm no fan of Musk. However, building companies is generally considered to be a good thing. Doing it with taxpayer money is only bad if it's somehow fraudulent - if you make a company and get a government contract and you actually fulfill that contract, that's neutral or good.

Spreading misinformation is definitely bad, but I don't think I'd class it as terrorism.

Regardless, I don't see any chance of the US throwing Musk out.

> Here, you have an illegal immigrant

He immigrated legally. The issue is that he did some work while he was on a student visa, which is a dumb minor technicality if it is even true. It’s not the outright illegal immigration that is enabled by one party, which is a far bigger influence on US politics.

> who has built multiple companies on the backs of billions of dollars of taxpayer money

Taxpayers got way more than they expected. Obviously.

> and uses it to spread misinformation

Musk has done more to restore free speech than anyone else in years and that is a threat to you. So now come labels like “misinformation”.

> It's basically terrorism

Get a grip.

> It’s not the outright illegal immigration that is enabled by one party, which is a far bigger influence on US politics.

“Republicans kill border bill in a sign of Trump's strength and McConnell's waning influence”: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna137477

Calling that a border bill is a bit dishonest. It was a $118 billion bill with only $20B in funding for border security, with restrictions on immigration that wouldn't even trigger until 5000 people each day (i.e. most border crossers) had been processed the same way they are processed now.

In short, it would have changed very little.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com