A Venezuelan social media influencer has gone viral with a video promoting “squatting” — trespassing on someone’s property in order to seize it — and instructing fellow immigrants on how to “invade” American homes.
Leonel Moreno, a Venezuelan migrant who uses the handle @leitooficial_25 on TikTok, has enraged social media users with a video telling followers that “if a house is not inhabited, we can seize it.”
In a video with nearly 800,000 views, Moreno says in Spanish: “I found out that there is a law that says if a house is not inhabited, we can seize it.”
@leitooficial_25
Referring to highly controversial “squatter’s rights” laws that exist in varying forms around the U.S., the influencer said the rules allow for a “land invasion.”
“That will be my next business, invading abandoned houses,” he said.
Past videos of Moreno’s show him promoting other ways of getting easy money, such as panhandling and receiving government welfare.
He claimed that he knows other migrants who have already successfully squatted in and seized houses, saying, “My African friends have told me that they have already taken about seven homes.”
“You have to look for the return, and the return right now is to invade a house,” Moreno explained, adding that taking advantage of squatter’s rights is the “only way we have to not live in the street and not be a public burden.”
It is unclear if Moreno is being investigated for sharing his threats to take over American homes, but some commenters who saw the video shared across multiple platforms believe he should be jailed or deported.
Under a repost of the video to X that received more than five million views, platform-owner Elon Musk commented a single straight-faced emoji, presumably to portray disappointment.
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— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 20, 2024
“It’s starting to feel like illegal immigrants have more rights than actual citizens,” wrote one X user.
“The Marxist destruction of private property rights invites this chaos. Societal destabilization,” said another.
The act of “squatting” typically involves a trespasser entering an uninhabited home or breaking his rent agreement in order to take it for himself, and several states and cities have laws protecting such people.
A “serial squatter” has recently been making headlines by refusing to move out of a $2 million Seattle, Washington, property, the Daily Mail reports.
Sang Kim, who was accused of squatting in a $1.3 million home before his current living situation, has reportedly refused to pay tens of thousands of dollars in rent to the homeowner.
Residents are protesting outside the home with signs and chants demanding Kim’s removal, a video captured by Discovery Institute journalist Jonathan Choe shows.
NEW: Seattle residents are publicly shaming serial squatter Sang Kim for squatting in a $2M property despite allegedly making $400k a year.
Let's make publicly shaming squatters a new trend.
According to the landlord, they are unable to get Kim out of their home who owes… pic.twitter.com/ExvcSCO7nP
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 20, 2024
Landlord Jaskaran Singh said Kim leads a high-class life “doing barbecues, buying new cars, living in the best neighborhood and sending his kids to the best schools.”
“Whereas the poor landlords, they are doing multiple jobs to support the mortgage of his house. [Kim] has no shame and he does not care about society.”
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