Democratic California Representative Maxine Waters called on President Donald Trump to investigate and potentially deport First Lady Melania Trump during an anti-DOGE protest in Los Angeles last weekend.
Clips of the rant went viral as Waters suggested that the first lady’s citizenship status- she’s been a U.S. citizen since 2006- should be scrutinized as a means of pushing back on the president’s executive order eliminating birthright citizenship.
“When he [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 was seen saying from the stage of a rally in Los Angeles, per a number of videos posted online.
“We don’t know whether or not her parents were documented. And maybe we better just take a look,” the aged congresswoman continued.
According to official government biographies, Melania Trump was born in the former Yugoslavia and became a U.S. citizen in 2006. She is the first first lady in U.S. history to be naturalized and only the second to be born outside the United States, following Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, wife of President John Quincy Adams, who was born in London in 1775.
Maxine Waters wants to deport Melania pic.twitter.com/5ja21ES3qV
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 24, 2025
A 2018 report by The New York Times note that after obtaining her own citizenship, the First Lady sponsored her parents—both originally from what is now Slovenia—for green cards and later citizenship. Viktor and Amalija Knavs officially became U.S. citizens that same year. Amalija Knavs passed away in 2024, while her father, Viktor, has recently been seen attending public events with the Trump family, including sitting next to Barron Trump during the inauguration.
The executive order works to clarify the 14th Amendment, which states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The Trump executive order seeks to limit birthright citizenship by excluding individuals born to illegal immigrant parents or those in the U.S. on temporary non-immigrant visas. The order has since been challenged in federal court.
Waters has a history of making unhinged remarks and ranting in public. Last month, she erupted in outrage and screeched her disapproval of both Trump and tech mogul Elon Musk at an event in Washington, D.C.
At a rally held by Democratic lawmakers protesting Musk’s access to information at the Treasury Department, Waters accused him of overstepping his boundaries without the consent of voters during her speech.
“We have got to tell Elon Musk that nobody elected your ass. Nobody told you you could get all of our private information. Nobody told you you could be in charge of the payments of this country,” Waters yelled.
While Musk was not actually elected, his boss — Trump — was, and by a significant amount over former Vice President Kamala Harris. Also, most senior advisors and Cabinet members of any administration were not elected, either, but serve at the pleasure of the president.
Waters went on to baselessly accuse Musk of monopolizing on the earnings of ordinary Americans to fund SpaceX and his other business endeavors.
“We have told you that you’ve made enough money off our government yourself, and now you want to take everybody else’s payroll and make sure that they don’t make the kind of money that you’ve made. Oh, you want to use our money to go to Mars,” Waters said.
The millionaire congresswoman also complained about Trump and other billionaires, claiming they are attempting to dominate the country’s political and economic spheres.