Ansari Calls for Miller to Be ‘Investigated and Prosecuted’ for Illegal Push to End Birthright Citizenship

Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's deputy White House chief of staff and the architect of much of his anti-immigration agenda over the past decade, has been fixated for years on ending birthright citizenship in the US—and one Democratic congresswoman said Thursday that his latest attempt should be the last straw.

"Stephen Miller architected the entirety of Trump’s racist and fascist mass deportation agenda, and he’s the one pushing relentlessly to end birthright citizenship—which is illegal," said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) after Trump and Miller announced two new executive orders related to the issue. "He needs to be investigated and prosecuted for the crimes he’s actively committing."

Weeks after the US Supreme Court—where three of the justices who make up the right-wing majority were appointed by Trump—ruled that the president's previous effort to end birthright citizenship for undocumented immigrants was unconstitutional, Trump signaled a new tactic focusing on terminating the right for the children of specific groups of people.

The first order would end automatic citizenship for children born to parents who work for foreign governments at embassies or organizations in the US, parents who "engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship," and parents who are part of designated terrorist groups or an "alien enemy."

The restriction would also pertain to babies who are "born in a territory or territorial waters of the United States where citizenship is not conferred by federal statute"—but eliminating birthright citizenship for children born in US territories would require congressional action, according to The New York Times.

The second order aims to crack down on what Trump called "birth tourism," with more restrictions on visitors to the US who give birth while in the country and try to obtain visas.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said the new executive action, like the order Trump signed to end birthright citizenship shortly after he took office last year, "seemingly violates the Constitution."

In the Oval Office at the White House late Thursday, the president cited no evidence as he claimed foreigners have obtained citizenship for their children, who numbered in the dozens.

“You have one man came in with a family... said he had 56 children," said Trump. "Another one came in. They said they had 98 children. This was not what it was for. This was meant for the babies of slaves. It was, it was right after one week or two weeks after the Civil War ended.”

Miller also emphasized that the 14th Amendment, which guarantees birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law, was meant to confer citizenship only to the children of people who had been enslaved before the Civil War ended.

But the origin of the law did not stop the Supreme Court from ruling in June that birthright citizenship is the law of the land under the US Constitution.

The president claimed "hundreds of thousands" of people in the US have benefited from birthright citizenship due to tourists giving birth in the country and the other scenarios described in the executive orders, but a study by Pennsylvania State University recently found that fewer than 0.3% of babies born in the US are born to tourists in any year.

Miller spoke during the Oval Office event, speaking out against people who "come here pretending to be a tourist... but the real reason they're here is to have a child."

Lying on a visa application in order to give birth in the US has long been illegal, Reichlin-Melnick pointed out.

Miller claimed that Section 215A of the Immigration and Nationality Act gives Trump the authority to enact the new restrictions on birthright citizenship, but even a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke anonymously to the Times said no new enforcement would come out of the birth tourism order.

The deputy chief of staff, who has also taken a leading role in orchestrating Trump's mass deportation campaign, claimed that the birth tourism order was "especially historic."

The word "historic," said writer Mike Young, was "doing a lot of work."

"You can crack down on visa fraud. You cannot have Stephen Miller stand beside the Resolute Desk and turn the 14th Amendment into a hotel checkout policy," said Young. "Birthright citizenship is not a loophole. It is the Constitution."

Immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta noted that even so-called "birth tourism" was covered in the Supreme Court's recent ruling, with Justice Samuel Alito noting that fact in his dissent.

"I expect a court to hold that most of Trump's new executive order is blatantly unconstitutional," said Mehta. "Trump is a small and petty man with a venal mind, and will be historically remembered as such down the ages, along with his henchman and collaborator Stephen Miller, who love to attack newborn children!"