Trump Aide Floats Barring Pregnant Visitors After Birthright Citizenship Ruling

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday to preserve birthright citizenship rights outlined in the 14th Amendment, White House advisor Stephen Miller suggested that the Trump administration may consider barring pregnant tourists or immigrants from entering the U.S. at all.

Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security to President Donald Trump, spoke to Fox News’s Jesse Watters hours after the ruling was rendered

“You have to now think very carefully about who you let into your country, even on a temporary basis,” Miller said in response to a question on how the U.S. can “crack down” on so-called “birth tourism.”

Miller claimed on the program that pregnant women are coming to the U.S., having children, and leaving their children in the U.S. while they return to their countries, supposedly so they can collect welfare checks from their child. After being prompted by Watters, Miller indicated that the administration is considering banning pregnant women from visiting the U.S.

“There’s a lot of things we’re going to have to take a hard look at,” Miller said.

The administration has already taken steps to, at the very least, increase scrutiny of pregnant people traveling to the U.S., as the Department of Justice (DOJ) has reportedly directed federal prosecutors to prioritize the supposed problem of birth tourism.

The DOJ “will zealously protect the sanctity of ​United States citizenship by investigating and prosecuting those who fraudulently exploit our immigration system,” a memo from the department stated.

Birth tourism — the practice of purposely traveling to another country to give birth so your child can secure citizenship — is considered rare in the U.S. The very concept feeds into the xenophobic “great replacement theory” frequently peddled by far right individuals like Miller — that immigrants or nonwhite individuals are part of a conspiracy to “replace” white people in the U.S.

One highly contested estimate on birth tourism claims that around 26,000 children are born annually in the U.S. as a result of the practice. Even if that figure is accurate, it would amount to fewer than 1 percent of all births in the country.

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Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, the president demanded that Congress take up the matter instead.

“We can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President, that has now been determined during this process,” Trump claimed in a Truth Social post. “No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!”

Based on the findings of the majority opinion of the Supreme Court case, it’s highly unlikely that the court would find a law passed by Congress on birthright citizenship acceptable or constitutional. Of the six justices who ruled against Trump’s executive order, only Brett Kavanaugh suggested that Congress potentially has the authority to pass legislation on birthright citizenship. The remaining five justices who ruled against the order indicated they did so based on the clear reading and intent of the 14th Amendment, not current U.S. code.

Meanwhile, MAGA influencers are pushing additional extreme policy changes in the wake of the ruling. Sean Davis, CEO of the right-wing news outlet The Federalist, said there are “several ways forward” to deal with the court’s decision.

Among them, Davis called for “nullification” from the states, wherein they “just stop issuing” birth certificates to children suspected of being born to non-citizens. Davis also called for the Trump administration to “pack the court” in order to relitigate the matter, and to “deny entry to all pregnant foreigners.”

Disturbingly, Davis also called for the “sterilization of all foreign visitors prior to entry” in response to the court’s actions — a policy that echoes the eugenics policies of Nazi Germany, which sterilized over 400,000 Germans in the name of a “pure” Aryan race.

And if those plans don’t work? “Dissolution of the Union,” Davis said.

Political observers have warned that despite the Supreme Court ruling to preserve birthright citizenship rights, Trump and his MAGA allies and advisers are unlikely to let go of the issue.

“The birthright issue is not going away. … Like Roe, this will be their fight for a generation. And if the Democrats just say ‘we won’ and ignore it, like Roe, the Republicans will eventually win,” The Nation’s Elie Mystal said.

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