Elon Musk joins Riley Gaines’ call for reform in ‘slow & difficult’ immigration; netizens react: ’Took me 10 years’

Elon Musk, the Space X founder and Tesla CEO, shared former NCAA swimmer and conservative activist Riley Gaines' concern over the difficult immigration procedures in the United States for obtaining a green card.

In a post on X on Thursday, the billionaire wrote, “Legal immigration to America is ridiculously slow & difficult, even for super talented people. Needs to be fixed,” as he re-shared Riley Gaines' viral Tik-Tok video.

Let's find out how the issue caught the Space X chief's attention. Riley Gaines, on her SNS profile, released a video of herself earlier this week, complaining that her husband “STILL doesn’t have a green card." She mentioned that her husband and British swimmer Louis Barker “moved to the United States from Europe six years ago for college” and came to live in the country “legally.” He found the love of his life at the University of Kentucky and eventually married Riley Gaines.

Even after tying the knot two and a half years ago, Riley Gaines' husband was nowhere near obtaining a green card, and hence, the possibility of becoming a US citizen seemed farther away. After US Citizenship and Immigration Service's (USCIS) tiresome immigration process came to the spotlight, a social media user said, “Took me 10 years, but I did it!”

Many other users echoed concerns about the lengthy immigration process. Another user wrote, “Not to mention expensive. $10k for my wife to get a basic temp. green card.”

A third user stated, “At least there’s hope her husband will become a US citizen. For the folks in the employment-based green card backlog, it’s over 100 years to become “hopefully” a permanent resident.” A fourth user commented, “Do talk about improving the plight of skilled immigrants stuck in #greencardbacklog when you discuss it at #DOGE.” Notably, Elon Musk is President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination for co-leader of the Department of Government Efficiency alongside Vivek Ramaswamy.

A fifth user wrote, “I know you're a legal immigrant but we don't need more at this point” [sic]. This draws reference to the Washington Post report in October this year which claimed that the South African-born businessman worked illegally in the US. According to the report, he worked for a short period in the 1990s while building a startup company. Later, Elon Musk dismissed these claims and said he was on "J-1 visa that transitioned to an H1-B”.