US Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller weighed in on birthright citizenship with a fiery tone. The Trump loyalist called the constitutional guarantee an “atrocity” as the US Supreme Court prepares to hear the White House’s appeal on restricting automatic citizenship.Miller posted on X, saying that current rules allow people with no legal statusin America to gain access to welfare and political influence through their US-born children. “Of all the destructive and ruinous policies aimed at the heart of our Republic, few can compete with ‘birthright citizenship,” he said.He claimed that “every illegal alien, foreign visitor and visa scammer, merely by giving birth on US soil, can access unlimited welfare for life through their ‘American’ child and send the extra cash back home to support their foreign village”. Miller said that such children become voters at 18, which he said makes up for a large voting base in the US: “Illegal aliens and their descendants are one of the largest voting blocs in the United States”.Miller also raised security concerns: “Under ‘birthright citizenship,’ a terrorist and his terrorist wife can commit immigration fraud, come here as tourists, perpetrate a terrorist attack, give birth, and have an ‘American’ child.”
Trump against birthright citizenship
Miller’s remarks arrive as the Supreme Court has agreed to take up Trump’s appeal to uphold his January 20 executive order seeking to limit birthright citizenship. The order aims to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the United States if their mother has temporary lawful status or no legal status, and if the father is not a US citizen or permanent resident. Four lower courts have blocked the government from enforcing the directive, leaving the policy on hold.Immigration experts warn that restricting citizenship would hit families caught in the decades-long green card backlog, particularly thousands of Indian workers on H-1B and H-4 visas. Under the proposed order, a baby born to such parents after February 19, 2025, would no longer receive US citizenship and would instead inherit the mother’s temporary status. In cases where the mother has no lawful status, the child could be considered unlawfully present from birth.
