Rep. Maxine Waters didn’t hold back in a fiery protest against Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown, and she had a message for the former president: “Maybe he ought to first look at Melania.”
The 86-year-old congresswoman went viral after delivering a scathing speech during an anti-Department of Government Efficiency rally in Los Angeles on March 22. Addressing Trump’s aggressive push to end birthright citizenship and deport millions, Waters turned the spotlight on First Lady Melania Trump and her family’s own immigration history.
“We are going to defend the Constitution because we believe in democracy,” Waters declared to an energized crowd. “So many people have sacrificed and fought and died for democracy. And Trump comes along with his ignorant a— and he don’t even know the Constitution.”
Taking direct aim at the administration’s sweeping deportation measures, Waters called out the hypocrisy of targeting immigrants while Trump’s own wife and in-laws benefited from the very system he wants to dismantle.
“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,” she said. “We don’t know whether or not her parents were documented. And maybe we better just take a look.”
Melania Trump, born in Slovenia in 1970, arrived in the U.S. in 1996 on a visa to pursue modeling. She met Trump two years later, married him in 2005, and gained U.S. citizenship in 2006. Her parents followed in 2018, obtaining green cards through her sponsorship.
Waters’ comments came in response to Trump’s executive order, signed on his first day back in office, aiming to dismantle birthright citizenship. The policy challenges the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
Trump’s move, which legal experts say is unconstitutional, was swiftly blocked by judiciary officials. The battle over citizenship rights is now poised for a high-stakes fight in the Supreme Court.
The explosive moment gained traction on social media, drawing a cryptic response from billionaire and DOGE head Elon Musk. Weighing in on X, Musk wrote, “At some point, the many crimes of Maxine Waters will catch up to her.”
What crimes? No one knows—because Waters has no criminal record. But that didn’t stop Musk’s comment from setting off a firestorm of speculation online.
