Stephen Miller Suggests Banning Pregnant Tourists from Entering US

Stephen Miller Says U.S. Should ‘Take a Hard Look’ at Banning Pregnant Tourists

The Trump administration is considering tighter restrictions on pregnant foreign travellers entering US, with White House deputy dhief of staff Stephen Miller saying officials will take "a hard look" at the idea following the latest Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship.

Speaking to Fox News, Miller said the administration would review immigration policies amid concerns over "birth tourism", a term used to refer to foreign nationals travelling to US to give birth so their children acquire American citizenship.

When asked whether the administration was considering banning pregnant women from entering the country, Miller replied: "Well, what I'm saying, Jesse, is that you have to now think very carefully about who you let into your country, even on a temporary basis, because the possibility, as you said, for birth tourism, right, they do that. People come here just to have babies on American soil, and that baby gets to be a citizen for life. "

He continued: "So, yes, you can't have the kinds of immigration programs other countries have when you can just have a baby here, and now that child is an American citizen. So, there's a lot of things we're gonna have to take a hard look at, Jesse."

Miller also argued that children born in the US to undocumented immigrants could later provide financial support to family members abroad, saying they would be able to send welfare benefits to "support a whole family in the third world."

The remarks came days after the US Supreme Court ruled that a president cannot override the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship through an executive order.

The ruling was criticised by several Republicans. Among them was Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee, who announced legislation called the "Anchors Away Act".

The proposed bill would prevent certain pregnant foreign women from entering US unless they are US citizens or lawful permanent residents.

Announcing the proposal in a video posted on social media, Ogles said: "So, I have a bill; it will be called 'Anchors Away,' which, look, if you're not a US citizen, if you're not a green card holder and you have a child on US soil, today, that child will be a US citizen."

He added: "Under my bill, under my legislation, we fix that. … So in short, what this bill does is, if you are a pregnant woman, you can't come into this country. You got to be a citizen, be here, you have to be a green card holder. So if you're pregnant and you don't have one of those statuses, no admittance allowed."

The proposed legislation takes its name from the term "anchor babies", a phrase used by immigration critics to describe children born in the US to undocumented immigrants.

Republican Representative Lauren Boebert also reacted to the court's ruling by calling on the State Department to "immediately cease to give out visas to pregnant applicants."

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin later said the administration was prepared to "look at" restrictions on pregnant travellers entering the country.

The debate has also drawn attention to the scale of so called birth tourism. According to a 2020 estimate by the Center for Immigration Studies, an organisation that supports lower immigration levels, between 20,000 and 26,000 birth tourism cases occurred annually in US. That represented less than one per cent of the country's 3.61 million births that year.