Stephen Miller says the US should ‘take a hard look’ at ban on pregnant tourists
The Trump administration is considering tougher restrictions on pregnant foreign travelers entering the United States, with White House deputy staffer Stephen Miller saying officials will take a “hard look” at the idea following a recent Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship.Speaking to Fox News, Miller said the administration would review immigration policies amid concerns about “birth tourism,” a term used to refer to foreign nationals who travel to the United States to give birth so that their children can obtain American citizenship.When asked if the administration was considering banning pregnant women from entering the country, Miller responded: “Well, what I’m saying, Jesse, is that now you have to think carefully about who you allow into your country, even on a temporary basis, because the potential, as you said, for birth tourism, right, they do.
People come here just to have children on American soil, and that child becomes a citizen for life.
““So, yeah, you can’t have the kind of immigration programs that you have in other countries when you can have a child here, and now that child is an American citizen. So, there’s a lot of things we have to take a closer look at, Jesse,” he continued.Miller also said that children born in the United States to illegal immigrants could later provide financial support to their family members abroad, saying they would be able to send welfare benefits “to support an entire family in the Third World.”
The comments came days after the US Supreme Court ruled that a president cannot override the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship through executive order. Many Republicans criticized the ruling. Among them was Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, who announced legislation called the “Anchors Away Act.” The proposed bill would bar some pregnant foreign women from entering the United States unless they are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.“So, I have a bill; it’s going to be called ‘Anchors Away,’ which, look, if you’re not a U.S. citizen, if you’re not a green card holder and you have a child on U.S. soil, today, that child would be a U.S. citizen,” Ogles said as he announced the proposal in a video posted on social media.He added: “Under my bill, under my legislation, we fix that… In short, what this bill does is, if you’re a pregnant woman, you can’t come to this country.
You have to be a citizen, you have to be here, and you have to be a green card holder. “So, if you are pregnant and you don’t have any of these conditions, you are not allowed in.”The proposed legislation takes its name from the term “anchor children,” a phrase used by immigration critics to describe children born in the United States to illegal immigrants.Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert also responded to the court’s ruling by calling on the State Department to “immediately stop granting visas to pregnant applicants.”Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullen later said the administration was willing to “consider” restrictions on pregnant travelers entering the country.The debate has also drawn attention to the scale of so-called birth tourism. According to 2020 estimates from the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that supports lower levels of immigration, between 20,000 and 26,000 birth tourism incidents occur annually in the United States. This represents less than one percent of the 3.61 million births in the country that year.