Riley Gaines Helps End US Government COVID Vaccine Mandate
The Biden administration enacted any number of inexcusable policies, but their obsession with COVID vaccines was one of the most indefensible.
It was well established by the summer and fall of 2021 that COVID vaccines did not slow or stop the spread of the virus, making any policies or mandates based on that incorrect assumption particularly absurd.
But particularly absurd describes the Biden administration perfectly.
Among the many ways that Biden and his handlers enforced their extremism on the public was in enacting vaccine-related discrimination as official policy of the U.S. Government. Including with unvaccinated citizens of other countries seeking green cards. Such as the husband of OutKick's Riley Gaines, host of the "Gaines for Girls" podcast.
Effectively, for the entirety of the Biden administration, government officials would not grant green cards unless the applicant had received a COVID vaccine. It was unjustified extremism in 2021, and reality-denying in 2025. And now, thanks in part to Riley Gaines and Elon Musk, it's over.
Gaines posted on X this week about how this policy had affected her and her husband, drawing Musk's attention, along with the right people working in the Trump administration.
She provided more background to OutKick on Wednesday afternoon.
"My husband and I got married in May of 2022," Gaines said. "He came over to the US from England after living in other countries, and came to the US on an athletic scholarship."
"We starting dating, he graduated a year earlier than me and moved back to Nashville, so he had to apply to all the different VISA applications. After we got married, we filed for a green card pretty immediately and were told it would take around six months. Six months came and went. Crickets. A year comes around. Crickets. We were dealing with immigration lawyers, dealing with fees and applications. He had to see a special Biden approved doctor, and even with all that we didn't know what the deal was. Finally, get a letter about a year and a half into waiting and they say, 'Oh here's the problem, you don't have the COVID shot, and we won't give you the green card until you get the COVID shot.'"
"All told, we probably spent around $15,000 on the different things, all the while reaching out to everyone we could. But there was no one at any federal agency who could have pointed us in the right direction. We were stonewalled for nearly three years."
Finally, after returning from the inauguration ceremony for President Trump in Washington D.C., Gaines returned home to a letter from the mailbox that she said was a "last effort" by the Biden administration to get everyone vaccinated.
That's when she posted on X and in a sign of how different this administration is going to be, the ball immediately got rolling.
Riley Gaines. Imagn/USAToday
Things Are Going To Be Different In The Trump Administration
Gaines explained that her post detailing the ridiculous vaccination requirement in the green card process "fell on the right ears," sparking "lots of conversations last night and this morning with the necessary people.
"Elon Musk was one of those people to make sure this gets done."
And on Wednesday, Gaines posted an update that the policy had been officially ended by the Trump administration. Two days in.
When asked what it meant to hear and what it showed about the new administration, Gaines said it was "validating" for her and her husband.
"It's crazy to me," she said, "That after three years of dealing with people, actually we couldn't really deal with anyone, call after call, we'd be on hold for hours to no prevail, we couldn't even have the conversation. Then President Trump gets in office, and on day two it changes overnight. When you think of the incompetence and unwillingness to help people who were doing things the right way."
It's not just about her though, Gaines said this exemplifies many of the issues we need to fix about legal immigration. And how government efficiency should work.
"This is how our government is supposed to be, our government often forgets they work for us. X has allowed for the facilitation of that setting to be successful," she explained. "Because otherwise people like me, with dissenting viewpoints, we haven't had a seat at the table. Elon Musk has been a pivotal part of allowing for that. God bless free speech, God bless President Trump."
After Trump's actions, Gaines expects the green card process to be "pretty immediate."
She was also happy that her husband wasn't forced into getting a COVID shot he didn't need, never wanted, and could have led to significant side effects.
" He didn't have to be coerced into doing this, early on there was a lot of uncertainty and it was hard to know what the right thing was. We were being told, 'you're going to die, be alone forever,' all this terrible verbiage while I was young, healthy, and already had COVID. And it's a red flag to be told that something is mandatory, and now we see that many of our suspicions are proving to be true with myocarditis or other side effects."
That's exactly right; the government wanted to coerce people by whatever means necessary. Costing people like Gaines and her family thousands of dollars and potentially forcing a pointless COVID vaccine on those who were simply trying to do things the right way.
Gaines pointed out how different things would be had Kamala Harris won, and it's easy to imagine that the COVID vaccine would still be a requirement today. Not to mention that a Harris administration would never work this quickly to right obvious wrongs. With her as VP, they didn't care enough to handle issues like Gaines' in a reasonable time frame, or get someone on the phone to discuss solutions.
Thankfully though, Gaines' posts and the Trump administration's dedication to righting the wrongs of the Biden administration will now pay dividends for everyone affected by this vaccine mandate. And government inefficiency.