Maxine Waters calls to investigate Melania Trump for deportation—says ‘we don’t know whether or not her parents were documented’

Waters made the remarks Saturday in Los Angeles during a demonstration against the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its cost-cutting measures. She accused Trump and Musk of undermining the Constitution, saying, “We are here because we are not going to let Trump, we’re not going to let Elon Musk, his co-president, or anybody else take the United States Constitution down.”

During her speech, Waters referenced Melania Trump’s background as an immigrant from Slovenia.

“When [Trump] talks about birthright, and he’s going to undo the fact that the Constitution allows those who are born here, even if the parents are undocumented, they have a right to stay in America, if he wants to start looking so closely to find those who were born here and their parents were undocumented, maybe he ought to first look at Melania,” Waters said. “We don’t know whether or not her parents were documented. And maybe we better just take a look.”

Melania was born in Slovenia in 1970 when it was part of Yugoslavia. She moved to New York City in 1996 on a travel visa before obtaining an H1-B visa for work. She became a US citizen in 2006 after marrying Trump and later sponsored her parents for citizenship, which they received in 2018. She is the first naturalized American to serve as First Lady and the second to be foreign-born, a report by the New York Post noted.

Waters’ comments come as the Trump administration continues efforts to narrow the scope of birthright citizenship to deter illegal immigrants from coming to the US and having children so they can become natural-born citizens. Trump signed an executive order after taking office aimed at ending birthright citizenship for migrants, but federal judges have blocked the order, and appeals courts have refused to reverse this decision. The administration has since asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on the matter.