Governor Tom Wolf from Harrisburg, PA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, Cropped by Resist the Mainstream

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) slammed the treatment of squatters in areas across the nation during an interview with the New York Post published on Saturday. 

Over the span of several months, Americans have seen a significant uptick in squatters across the nation, abusing so-called “squatters rights” which allow them to invade empty homes.

In New York, 30 days of residency in an unoccupied home can grant squatters “squatter’s rights,” which shields them from eviction related measures, such as lock changes, utility cuts, or property dispossession. 

In March, a TikTok user went viral for telling illegal immigrants how to use these “rights,” after a New Yorker was detained for allegedly attempting to remove squatters from her own home in March.

“By the time someone does their investigation, their work, and their job, it will be over 30 days and this man will still be in my home,” said Adele Andaloro, the affected homeowner.

The TikToker, Venezuelan illegal immigrant Leonal Moreno, posted a video that called upon his 300,000 followers to invade and squat in homes all around the United States.

Fetterman slammed the idea that squatters should be allowed to occupy someone else’s home, and told the Post “I am not woke.”

“Squatters have no rights,” Fetterman said. “How can you even pretend that this is anything other than you’re just breaking the law?”

“It’s wild, that if you go away on a long trip, for 30 days, and someone breaks into your home and suddenly they have rights,” Fetterman continued. “This is crazy. Like if somebody stole your car, and then they held it for 30 days, then somehow you now have some rights?”

This comes just over a week after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill cracking down on squatters in the state. 

“We are in the state of Florida ending this squatters scam once and for all. And momentarily I’ll be signing HB 621, which will give the homeowner the ability to quickly and legally remove a squatter from a property and which will increase criminal penalties for squatting,” DeSantis said during the Wednesday press conference at the Orange County State Attorney’s Office. 

“What the squatters know is, even when they’re in the wrong, it’s a massive process many times before they can be evicted and a lot of times that process is very expensive,” he added. “We don’t want the law to have the thumb on the scale in favor of people that are violating the law. We want the law to have the thumb on the scale and in favor of law-abiding property owners.”

Fetterman’s comments took aim at soft-on-crime policies allowing repeat offenders to roam free, noting specifically the case of New York Police Department Officer Jonathan Diller, who was allegedly killed by an individual who had been arrested 21 times previously. 

“If this individual is convicted, then he should spend the rest of his life in prison, and never have an opportunity to get out,” Fetterman told the Post. “If you have those kinds of established records, it doesn’t serve any greater goal to allow people that are offending, offending, offending and allow them to not be held accountable.”