Venezuelan TikToker instructs illegal immigrants to steal Americans' homes, exploit squatters rights laws

A TikTok influencer with over 500,000 subscribers has recently gone viral with a video in which he explains to illegal immigrants, in Spanish, how they can "invade" vacant homes in the United States and exploit squatters' rights laws to stay there.

Leonel Moreno, who goes by variations of Leitooficial on social media, suggested occupying other people's property is the "only way we have to not live in the street and not be a public burden."

"I found out that there is a law that says if a house is not inhabited we can seize it," Moreno began, per a Daily Mail translation, telling viewers, "that will be my next business, invading abandoned houses."

"My African friends have told me that they have already taken about seven homes," he added. "You have to look for the return, and the return right now is to invade a house."

Moreno claimed that if someone occupies a property that has "deteriorated" or is in "bad condition," then does repairs while they live there, they can "ask for credits" when the home is sold.

While the video has been viewed just under 800,000 times on TikTok, it was ripped and posted to X, where it has since been seen by millions of users.

Moreno's comments were widely criticised, with many questioning why squatters, regardless of their immigration status, were being given rights in the first place. In many areas of the country, there are laws that make it very difficult for property owners to remove people who move in univited, with disputes often having to be settled in court.

The discussion comes amid a recent surge in homeowners taking stories of those squatting on their properties public in an attempt to shine light on the issue. In one case, a woman in New York City was arrested after changing the locks on her own home to prevent people who had been occupying it from coming back. The national media coverage eventually caused two of the occupants to leave. One man stayed on.

In the days since making the video, Moreno has come out with others in which he claimed that abandoned cars on the side of the road are fair game to simply take and sell.