President Donald Trump had just signed off on his latest attempt to force through a controversial part of his agenda when one basic question in the Oval Office appeared to leave him searching for someone else to explain how it was actually supposed to work.
The bizarre scene unfolded Thursday, Aug. 6, as Trump unveiled two new executive orders targeting so-called “birth tourism” and once again trying to restrict who can claim birthright citizenship in the United States.
The orders are Trump’s latest attempt to chip away at birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment, after the Supreme Court dealt a setback to the broader executive order he signed on his first day back in office seeking to end it.
Standing nearby to help sell Trump’s next move was deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, the architect behind the administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown and a frequent backstop when the president’s own explanations create more questions than answers.
Miller says the new “birth tourism” order bars “alien enemies of the United States, members of foreign terrorist organizations and large categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments” from claiming U.S. citizenship for any children they have while in the U.S.
Miller went on to explain that the other order Trump signed would ban “birth tourism.”
He explained that as, “people come here, pretend to be a tourist, pretend to be a visitor, say they want to go to Disneyland, they want to go visit a monument or go to a national park, but the real reason they’re here is to have a child, to make that child an automatic citizen, leave our country, and then have a U.S. citizen child.”
Trump called the Supreme Court ruling “a very unfair decision” and that he now intends to end birthright citizenship “another way.”
A reporter told Trump neither the Solicitor General nor the Supreme Court had any numbers on how many people actually engage in so-called “birth tourism.”
“I’ll tell you right now hundreds of thousand, hundreds of thousands,” Trump claimed.
“One man came in with a family and said he had 56 children. Another one came in. They said they had 98 children,” Trump bizarrely claimed.
“This is not what it was for. This was meant for the babies of slaves … It was one week or two weeks after the Civil War ended,” the president continued, seemingly referring to the ratification of the 14th Amendment, which actually happened in 1868, some three years after the Civil War ended.
“This wasn’t for multi-millionaires, billionaires coming in and bringing 15, 20, 30 children along with them. It’s become a big business and we’re ending that business,” Trump nonsensically added.
His statement doesn’t make any sense because if a tourist or foreign visitor comes to the United States and brings children, those children do not receive U.S. citizenship, but all children born on U.S. soil under the 14th Amendment do receive birthright citizenship.
Then CBS journalist Weijia Jiang asked Trump how he and his administration plan to distinguish between a tourist and a birth tourist.
A tired, low-energy Trump, who seemed bored by the whole thing, also appeared confused by the question and pointed to Miller to answer.
Miller first smugly emphasized that Section 250A under the Immigration and Nationality Act gives Trump the authority to restrict birthright citizenship and then he basically gave a nonanswer to the question.
“Birth tourism is by definition a fraud on the American system, on the American taxpayer, on the American Visa,” Miller stated.
“If you’re coming here, and again, your stated purpose is that you’re a tourist, that by definition you are here to come for a few weeks, look what we have, engage in commerce and leave,” he said.
“So, if you’re telling a consulate officer you’re her by choice, but your true intent is to go to a baby mill, give birth, and try to mint an American citizen while you’re here, then you’re committing a fraud against the American government and, by definition, that visa can and should and will be now be denied,” Miller declared, still not explaining what a “birth tourist” is and how they intend to identify one.
Do they plan on barring pregnant women from entering the U.S. for example, opponents wondered?
Social media also erupted in a frenzy of outrage and anger over Trump’s new attempt at bypassing the Supreme Court’s decision.
“What the f-ck is a baby mill????” a Threads user asked.
Bluesky posted, “Non lawyer and criminal fraud Miller lying for convicted felon trump. Laughable.”
Betsy chimed in, “Supreme Court said no tariffs because that hs congress’s job and he does it anyway. They say birthright citizenship stays and he/Miller writes an executive order anyway! Wny isn’t anyone stopping him?”
Another poster pointed out that Trump himself has benefitted from birthright citizenship involving two of his three wives. Both his first wife, Ivana Trump, and his current one, Melania Trump were immigrants. Ivana was born in the former Czechoslovakia and Melania was born in Slovenia, part of the former Yugoslavia.
“The old guy in the chair has the most tourist attraction kids by imiggrant mum’s just like their crooked dad and their just birth tourists.”
The 14th Amendment says all babies born in America are U.S. citizens, which the Supreme Court just reaffirmed, regardless of the parents’ immigration status.
