White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said in a post on X on Thursday that asylum claims in the United States are "all fake" and argued that migrants use birthright citizenship to generate what he described as "industrial-scale remittance farming."
"Everyone involved in the asylum system knows and understands the claims are all fake," Miller wrote, adding that migrants seek access to U.S. welfare benefits and that having a U.S.-born child provides financial support for families abroad. He claimed that "entire foreign economies are sustained by U.S. welfare remittances," linking his argument directly to longstanding criticism of birthright citizenship policies.
Everyone involved in the asylum system knows and understands the claims are all fake: the aliens who make them, the free NGO lawyers who file them, the judges who hear them, the federal officers who process them. Everyone. Everyone knows the real reason these migrants come. Even… https://t.co/0dpb0zXVHd
— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) April 2, 2026
The remarks are the latest in a series of statements by Miller framing immigration as both an economic and legal issue tied to citizenship. In March, he said that offering birthright citizenship "steals the actual birthright of every American," arguing that the policy incentivizes migration in a globalized world. Back in December he described the system as "illegal suicide" and called for stricter limits on entry to the United States.
Miller's comments come as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a challenge to an executive order by Donald Trump seeking to restrict birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to parents without legal status or with temporary visas. During oral arguments on Wednesday, several justices expressed skepticism about the administration's position, as BBC reports.
Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether the president has the authority to exclude a broad category of U.S.-born children from citizenship, while Justice Elena Kagan said the administration's interpretation would depart from a long-standing legal tradition rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment and affirmed by the 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
The administration has argued that limiting birthright citizenship is necessary to curb illegal immigration and prevent what it describes as abuse of the system. Supporters, including some Republican lawmakers, have pointed to "birth tourism" as evidence that individuals travel to the United States to secure citizenship for their children.
Immigration experts and legal scholars have disputed those claims. Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia, told lawmakers there is little evidence that birth tourism accounts for more than a small share of U.S. births and warned that restricting citizenship could create legal uncertainty for hundreds of thousands of children.
Public opinion on the issue remains divided. A recent national survey found that 59% of Americans support maintaining birthright citizenship, while 24% oppose it.
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