Research/Study Research/Study

Right-wing media target pregnant and female travelers following SCOTUS birthright citizenship ruling

Pundits suggested refusing pregnant travelers visas, deporting “birthing-aged” women, and even sterilizing travelers entering the United States

Written by Reed McMaster & Torri Lonergan

Published

After the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, right-wing media proposed draconian policies to prevent travelers potentially giving birth in the United States. The policies demanded by right-wing media — which almost exclusively target female migrants — were often proposed under the guise of combating birth tourism, which the U.S. already has enforcement tools in place to prevent.

  • The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of birthright citizenship

    • On June 30, the Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship. On the first day of Trump’s second term, the president signed an executive order seeking to deny birthright citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants and the children of those in the country legally on temporary work, student, or tourism visas. The Supreme Court struck down the executive order in June, finding that it violated the 14th Amendment guarantee that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” [NPR, 6/30/26; Media Matters, 2/14/25]
    • Birth tourism, the practice of visiting the United States to give birth to a U.S. citizen child, is already restricted under U.S. law. As the American Immigration Council's Dara Lind described, “Consulates have a ton of discretion under existing law to deny someone a visa. And suspicion of birth tourism _has_ served as a reason to deny visas in the past.” FactCheck.org noted that the previous Trump administration issued rules to further restrict the process and deny tourism visas to any applicant the State Department has “reason to believe intends to travel for this primary purpose.” [BlueSky, 7/1/26; FactCheck.org, 4/16/26] 

  • Right-wing media figures proposed denying entry to “all female foreigners” and prioritizing “birthing-aged women” for deportation

    • On War Room, Article III Project founder Mike Davis called the ruling “an abomination” and insisted the “solution” is for Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin “to move immediately to deport, to detain every illegal immigrant that they can find, especially birthing-aged women.” He continued, “Any woman illegal alien who is capable of having a child needs to be rounded up first.” Davis was already demanding this prior to the ruling, saying on The Megyn Kelly Show the day before that if the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, “We need to get all illegals out of our country fast, and we need to start with birthing-aged women.” [Real America's Voice, War Room, 6/30/26, 6/30/26; SiriusXM, The Megyn Kelly Show, 6/29/26]
    • The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis suggested denying visas to “all female foreigners” and even requiring “sterilization of all foreign visitors.” Among a list of proposals designed to respond to what he called “the choice of Roberts/Barrett to nullify the 14th Amendment and extra-constitutionally replace it with their own language,” Davis suggested the government could “deny entry to all pregnant foreigners,” “deny entry to all female foreigners,” and “require sterilization of all foreign visitors prior to entry.” [BlueSky, 6/30/26] 
    • Former One America News host Liz Wheeler posted on social media that the ruling “left us no choice” but to “close the border especially to pregnant women” and “ban surrogacy.” [Instagram, 6/30/26]
    • Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet wrote, “What can we do now? Pass much stricter visa laws. If you're pregnant, no visa.” He added, “If you want to visit a US territory, you must have a visa with strict vetting. End dual citizenship. End the exploitation of U.S. surrogacy laws. Mass deportations.” [BlueSky, 6/30/26]
    • Podcast host Megyn Kelly: “Would there be the possibility of cracking down on pregnant aliens who are coming over here? Revoking visas? Pregnancy tests, even? I mean, how far could we go with that?” [SiriusXM, The Megyn Kelly Show, 6/30/26]
    • On The Charlie Kirk Show, former Justice Department chief of staff Chad Mizelle argued, “We have to impose more strict visa laws. If you are pregnant — if you are eight-months, nine-months pregnant — you should not be coming to the United States because we now know that that child born to you could be a U.S. citizen.” He added, “I think we should get rid of dual citizenship. We need to reinforce the idea that you can only have allegiance to a single nation.” [Rumble, The Charlie Kirk Show, 6/30/26]
    • On Fox Business, former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Jonathan Fahey proposed “tightening up these visa laws, so people if — hey, if you're advanced pregnancy, you can't come in.” He continued, “The other thing that would be really important to do is for DOJ not only to crack down on these, but for Congress to pass some enhanced penalties for people doing this birth tourism or other types of visa fraud.” [Fox Business, The Bottom Line, 6/30/26]
    • The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro: “We can change our travel regulations to prevent people from abroad traveling to the United States in the late stages of pregnancy.” He continued, “If you're coming in six-months pregnant, we should not give you a four-month visa. We should give you a one-month visa and then kick your ass out, right? These are things that we can do. None of this requires congressional action.” [The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 7/1/26]