Trump Bans Birth Tourism, Narrows Birthright Citizenship
Trump signed two executive orders that deny visas to birth tourists and widen who is ineligible for birthright citizenship, two months after the Supreme Court rejected his earlier attempt.
Birth tourism has been banned in the United States since August 6, and the decision lands exactly where it touches Serbian citizens most directly: at the visa window. Donald Trump signed two executive orders in the Oval Office that day, one covering arrivals for the purpose of giving birth and the other spelling out who no longer qualifies for American citizenship by birth.
The move follows the US Supreme Court’s rejection in June of Trump’s earlier attempt to strip citizenship from children born to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily, a ruling that upheld a broad reading of the 14th Amendment. Rather than mount a fresh challenge to the constitutional definition itself, the White House is now going around it, using two levers already in its hands: the visa system and its own interpretation of who even qualifies.
How do you tell a tourist from a birth tourist?
That question fell to Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff, who presented both orders. He cited Section 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives the president authority to set rules for entry into and exit from the country.
Miller said anyone who tells a consular officer they are visiting as a tourist, while actually planning to give birth so the child gains citizenship, is committing fraud against the US government. He called the practice “a scam on the American system.”
“That practice of birth tourism is, as of the signing of this order, hereby banned. That means no one in the world may obtain a visa for that fraudulent purpose anymore,” Miller said.
The second order directs visa denials for those who organize such trips as well, meaning agencies and intermediaries. The first widens the pool of people the administration considers ineligible for birthright citizenship, and according to Miller that now includes:
- hostile foreign nationals
- members of foreign terrorist organizations
- broad categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments
How many people are actually involved?
Trump spoke of “hundreds of thousands” of birth tourism beneficiaries. His own solicitor general, John Sauer, gave a different answer to the same question in April, before the Supreme Court: he said no one knows a reliable figure, then cited media estimates of 1.1 million, or 1.5 million from mainland China alone. A congressional report he referenced pointed to hotspots such as Russian elites arriving in Miami through specialized agencies.
The gap between the president’s number and the solicitor general’s is not a small one. The order is defended on the scale of the phenomenon, yet the only figure the administration has put before a court came with the caveat that nobody has actually measured it.
Trump himself explained the decision briefly and without dressing it up.
“We’re making adjustments because it’s very unfair. They build businesses around birthright citizenship. That’s not how it was supposed to work. It’s a disgrace. They’re buying their way in, and we’re not going to allow that,” the president told reporters.
On enforcement he added: “We’re going into a very big operation, a big one, big raids. This will give us the right to do it in a much more decisive way.”
What happens in court next
The order from day one of Trump’s second term was challenged in court immediately, with opponents citing the 14th Amendment adopted after the Civil War. Lower courts blocked it and it never took effect, and in June it fell before the Supreme Court. Trump again called that ruling unfortunate, adding that it had been close.
Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary, insists the two new documents will not meet the same fate, saying the administration is relying on legally tested tools that do not conflict with the Supreme Court’s decision. Asked whether the orders would survive court challenges, Trump answered: “I think they will.”
For Serbia, the part of the package that matters is the visa piece. Serbian citizens are not part of the US visa waiver program, so every trip already requires an interview and a visa, and the consular window is exactly where this ban gets applied. The decision on a traveler’s intent stays discretionary and is made before departure, with no court process and no explanation a traveler can challenge.
The White House has not yet released the text of either order. Their real reach will only become clear once the documents are published, and once the first denied visa application reaches a US court.
