Fact check: Elon Musk's claim that Democrats are avoiding deportations to win elections is False.

Following news reports about immigrants in the U.S. illegally suspected in violent attacks in New York City and Georgia, Elon Musk accused Democrats of avoiding deportation to win at the ballot box.

"Dems won’t deport, because every illegal is a highly likely vote at some point," Musk wrote on X Feb. 26. "That simple incentive explains what seems to be insane behavior."

Musk’s post also referred to immigrants illegally in the U.S. who are accused of assaulting New York City police officers. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said that the reported migrants who were recorded on video assaulting police should be deported. 

Musk’s post shared another person’s X post about the murder of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old University of Georgia nursing student who was killed Feb. 22 while on a run. Authorities charged Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old from Venezuela, with the murder.  

U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped Ibarra when he illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in September 2022, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ibarra was paroled in, allowing him to be released into the U.S. to await further immigration proceedings.

The Nashville Tea Party, a conservative group, posted Musk’s statement on Instagram about a week later. 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Musk has repeatedly posted similar statements about Democrats "importing voters" or illegal immigrants and voters.

These statements by Musk — and similar ones by former President Donald Trump and J,D, Vance, now a Republican U.S. Senator from Ohio — are wrong.

We contacted X’s press team asking for Musk’s evidence and received an automated response: "Busy now, please check back later."

Presidents, including Democrats, have removed and returned immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally for years, as federal government data shows.

David Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said Musk’s statement is "ludicrously untrue."

Bier pointed to data from the Department of Homeland Security showing that Biden and former Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have returned, removed or expelled millions of people.

During each of his terms, Obama removed and returned more people than Trump did. 

There have been more than 3.6 million removals, returns and expulsions from February 2021, Biden’s first month in office, to September 2023, based on Department of Homeland Security estimates.

Federal law requires U.S. citizenship to vote in national elections, and would-be voters sign a form that attests under penalty of perjury that they are citizens when they register to vote. States can check databases to verify voters’ citizenship. 

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Voting by noncitizens carries high risks that include deportation or incarceration.

There are incidents of noncitizens voting in elections, but they are sporadic among millions of votes cast in federal elections. Immigrants who cross the border illegally are typically looking for jobs and many are escaping poverty or crime — most don’t want to risk drawing government authorities’ attention by casting a ballot.

"There is a massive economic incentive to migrate here illegally," Bier wrote on X. "There’s a massive economic disincentive to vote illegally."

As we explained in a recent fact-check of Trump, fraudulent voter registration or voting by noncitizens often results from misunderstandings or errors. For example, some noncitizens accidentally register to vote when applying for a driver’s license. But the number of people who fall into this category is "minuscule," Rutgers University political science professor Lorraine Minnite previously told us. 

In 2020, federal prosecutors charged 19 people in North Carolina with voter fraud after they cast ballots mostly in the 2016 election. Sixteen people pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors related to voting as a noncitizen; three cases were dismissed. 

That was a big case, but more than 4.5 million people in North Carolina voted in the 2016 presidential election.

It takes several years for an immigrant to become a citizen and gain voting rights.

"It takes on average five years in green card status before a person can become a U.S. citizen, so no one would instantly gain the right to vote," Michelle Mittelstadt, a spokesperson for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, previously told PolitiFact.

Not all immigrants who become citizens will vote. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in the 2022 election, native-born citizen voter turnout was 53.4%, exceeding the 41.4% turnout of naturalized citizens.

There is some evidence that immigrants lean left, but there are variations depending on their backgrounds and where they live. 

A 2023 national poll by KFF and the Los Angeles Times found that 37% of naturalized citizens say the Democratic Party represents their views better than the Republican party while 21% say the Republican Party does. But large shares of poll respondents leaned toward neither party. 

But there is no guarantee that immigrants who become citizens in the future will vote for Democrats.

Bier told us that "there is zero evidence that immigration has harmed Republican Party prospects." Congressional Republicans have performed much better during periods when the immigrant share of the population is high, Bier wrote in 2019.

Musk said Democrats don’t deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally "because every illegal is a highly likely vote at some point."

Musk provided no evidence to support his statement about deportation or voting. The Biden administration, and previous Democratic administrations, have deported millions of immigrants.

Immigrants cannot vote until they become citizens, a process that takes several years.

We rate this statement False.

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