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News Analysis
As it seeks to end birthright citizenship, the Trump administration is arguing that immigrants bring problems that extend for generations. The data shows otherwise.
Dec. 23, 2025Updated 5:05 p.m. ET
When Stephen Miller, one of President Trump’s top advisers, makes the case for the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, he is focused not only on the actions of those who came to the United States from another country.
Increasingly, he blames their children as well.
Mr. Miller’s belief that seven decades of immigration has produced millions of people who take more than they give — an assertion that has been refuted by years of economic data — is at the heart of the Trump administration’s campaign to restrict immigration and deport immigrants already in the country.
But he is now stressing an argument that immigrants bring problems to the United States that extend through generations.
“With a lot of these immigrant groups, not only is the first generation unsuccessful. Again, Somalia is a clear example here,” Mr. Miller said on Fox News this month, adding, “You see persistent issues in every subsequent generation. So you see consistent high rates of welfare use, consistent high rates of criminal activity, consistent failures to assimilate.”
The attack line comes as the administration is calling for the Supreme Court to uphold Mr. Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, the long-held principle that children born on American soil are automatically citizens.
The argument by Mr. Miller and others in the administration hearkens back to the anti-migrant rhetoric of the early 20th century, when lawmakers used the 1924 National Origins Act to impose strict quotas to keep out immigrants from Asia and southern and Eastern Europe, and their families.
