The Trump administration is considering barring pregnant foreign women from entering the United States as a new strategy to curtail birthright citizenship, days after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s executive order seeking to end automatic citizenship for children born on American soil.
Blocked by the Supreme Court on birthright citizenship, the Trump administration is already looking for another way around it — and pregnant women may pay the price.
Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller confirmed this week that the administration is weighing a ban on pregnant foreign nationals entering the United States, framing it as a necessary response to what the White House describes as “birth tourism.”
“You have to now think very carefully about who you let into your country, even on a temporary basis because of the possibility for birth tourism,” Miller said. “That people come here just to have babies on American soil, and that baby gets to be a citizen for life.”
He added: “If a person comes here nine months pregnant to go and look around at some things, in a couple of weeks that is the mother of a lifetime American citizen and a direct line into American cash and welfare for the rest of that child’s life. There are a lot of things we need to have a hard look at.”
The remarks came days after the US Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, blocked Trump’s Day One executive order seeking to strip automatic citizenship from children born in the US to parents living in the country illegally or on a temporary basis. The court held that the order breached the 14th Amendment — the first major legal challenge to that constitutional provision in over a century.
Tribune reported that the administration had argued that birthright citizenship “rewards illegal aliens who not only violate the immigration laws but also jump in front of those who follow the rules.”
Immigration experts have noted that birth tourism, while real, accounts for only a small fraction of US births annually.
With the Supreme Court route now closed, a travel restriction targeting pregnant foreign nationals represents the administration’s next potential move in its push to redefine American citizenship eligibility.
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