Republicans raise alarm about Chinese 'birth tourism' industry

by Bethany Blankley, The Center Square

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-WI, is raising concerns about the Chinese “birth tourism” industry that he says is operating in the U.S.

Tiffany raised the concerns at a recent U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee hearing about Chinese women arriving in the U.S. territory of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) without a visa in order to give birth and claim birthright citizenship for their baby.

“Since 2009, Communist Chinese passport holders have been permitted to sidestep the U.S.. visa requirements to enter the Northern Mariana Islands through categorical parole,” Tiffany said, referring to a parole program created by the Obama administration.

Tiffany asked USCIS director Ur Jaddou if she agreed that children of foreign tourists should receive U.S. citizenship but did not give her an opportunity to respond.

“There are more children being born via birth tourism on the Northern Mariana Islands right now than there are domestic children being born,” he said. “They don't even have to have a visa to come in here.”

Tiffany and U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-WI, have raised concerns about the issue before, previously calling on the Trump administration to end the “birth tourism” industry.

“Birth tourism has long been an underground industry in the CNMI, with pregnant Chinese women flocking to Saipan to give birth that automatically provides U.S. citizenship to their new-born child. Most of these women leave the CNMI after childbirth and receipt of their baby’s U.S. passport,” Pacific Island Times reported in 2017.

In 2019, a Hong Kong-based airlines required female customers to take pregnancy tests before boarding flights to the U.S. territory “in response to concerns raised by authorities in Saipan … to help ensure U.S. immigration laws were not being undermined,” The New York Times reported. The airlines suspended the practice after customers complained.

In 2020, the administration implemented a new visa rule attempting to restrict birth tourism to “combat these endemic abuses and ultimately protect the United States from the national security risks created by this practice,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said at the time.

Trump’s Department of Justice also brought charges against a Chinese national who overstayed his tourist visa, was illegally living in the CNMI, harboring illegal foreign nationals and operating an illegal birth-tourism business on Saipan. He was sentenced to one year in prison for illegally employing dozens of caretakers, or “nannies,” all Chinese nationals in the CNMI illegally, according to the complaint.

According to Saipan-based Commonwealth Health Center data, “tourists” giving birth in the CNMI increased from 314 in 2014 to 383 in 2016. In 2009, there were eight recorded births from a Chinese mother, which increased to 282 in 2012, according to Pacific Island Times. In a 22-month period, foreign mothers gave birth to 715 babies in the CNMI, 692 of them were Chinese, according to the data. A small number were born by Korean, Filipino, Japanese and Russian mothers who arrived in the U.S. territory.

California also has a birth tourism industry, prompting the Trump administration to bring federal criminal charges against operators and customers in 2019.

In one case, 19 people were charged for their role in a “birthing homes” scheme operating across southern California. This involved Chinese nationals applying for visitor visas and lying about their trip details on their application, with the purpose of coming to give birth to obtain birthright citizenship for their baby.

“The birth tourism operations not only committed widespread immigration fraud and engaged in international money laundering, they also defrauded property owners when leasing the apartments and houses used in their birth tourism schemes, according to the indictments,” ICE said when announcing them.

Pregnant Chinese nationals involved in the scheme were directed to fly to Hawaii because it was easier to get through CBP checkpoints therei as opposed to Los Angeles, according to the indictments. Many Chinese mothers failed to pay the medical costs associated with their hospital births, and their debts were referred to collection, the investigation found.

Roughly one decade later, in September, two Chinese residents in San Bernardino County were found guilty for their role in the scheme that involved using apartment complexes to provide temporary housing to Chinese women to give birth, visa assistance, customs entry guidance, and transportation, among other services. The two were found guilty of one count of conspiracy and 10 counts of international money laundering, the IRS reported.

The mothers weren’t arrested but were treated as material witnesses reportedly paying between $40,000 and $80,000 to give birth in the U.S., NBC News reported.

Under the Biden administration, the greatest number of Chinese nationals illegally entered the country in US history, more than 176,000, The Center Square first reported.