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GOP officials eye restrictions on pregnant travelers following Supreme Court ruling

MS NOW

July 1, 2026 at 9:11am UTC

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The ruling wasn’t as lopsided as many legal observers expected, but in Trump v. Barbara, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the idea that a president can override the 14th Amendment to the Constitution with an executive order. Though the 5-4 ruling left in place a status quo that has existed for generations, much of the right did not respond well to the news.

Much of the outrage from conservatives was tiresome and predictable, but one element of the pushback to the high court’s ruling stood out for unfortunate reasons.

A couple of hours after the decision was issued, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado argued by way of social media that the State Department “should immediately cease to give out visas to pregnant applicants.” Soon after, one of her colleagues went a step further by announcing plans for a legislative solution.

Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee said Tuesday that he’s moving forward with plans for legislation that he’s calling the Anchors Away Act, which would ban certain pregnant foreign women from entering the United States.

“So, I have a bill; it will be called ‘Anchors Away,’ which, look, if you’re not a U.S. citizen, if you’re not a green card holder and you have a child on U.S. soil, today, that child will be a U.S. citizen,” Ogles said in a video posted to social media. “Under my bill, under my legislation, we fix that. … So in short, what this bill does is, if you are a pregnant woman, you can’t come into this country. You got to be a citizen, be here, you have to be a green card holder. So if you’re pregnant and you don’t have one of those statuses, no admittance allowed,” he continued.

As HuffPost noted, The ‘anchor’ part of Ogles’ bill refers to the pejorative term, ‘anchor babies,’ used by many conservatives to describe children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants.”