The Biggest (and Fastest Growing) Immigration Scam: Birthing Tourism

CAPS’ recent lead homepage news story, San Gabriel Shuts Down Makeshift Maternity Ward Catering to ‘Birthing Tourism’ focused on the latest, most insidious scam routinely exploited in the United States’ fraud-ridden legal immigration system. The birthing tourism concept is simple. For a fee, pregnant women purchase travel packages to come to the United States, check in at a hotel or other facility designed to accommodate their needs with a staff that speaks their language and is familiar with their customs. Then when the baby is born, presto, he is an American citizen. Mission accomplished! Every step en route to the United States and upon arrival is perfectly legal. The final and crucial phase, the delivery of an American citizen child, is sanctioned by Congress’ willful misinterpretation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Birth tourism is a trend that first popped up on the radar in 2002 when the Los Angeles Times featured a story by reporter Barbara Demick titled Korean Moms Want ‘Born in USA’ Babies. Said Mom-to-be Kim Jeong Yeon: “It’s easy. If you register the birth, it’s automatic that your baby can get an American passport.” Added Kim: “If they could afford it, all my friends would go to the United States to have their babies.” Luxury birth tourism packages like the one Kim traveled on cost up to $20,000 all included. And for the wealthy Koreans, the benefits of dual citizenship which Korea allows are great including avoiding military service. The Internet has spread the word around the world about how foreign nationals can buy U.S. citizenship. Less than a year ago, New York’s Marmara Manhattan Hotel brazenly advertised: “What we offer is simply a one-bedroom suite accommodation for $5,100, plus taxes, for a month, with airport transfer, baby cradle and a gift set for the mother.” A Turkish newspaper promoted the Marmara in its story, Birth Tourism in the U.S. on the Rise for Turkish Parents which created a rush among pregnant Turks to travel to New York. In Istanbul, it’s the thing to do! Granting to any child born in the U.S. automatic citizenship is crazy in and of itself. But worse is that citizenship leads to chain migration and all the subsequent overpopulation issues that strain America’s environmental and social services structures. As CAPS has repeatedly urged, Congress needs to act now. Once unscrupulous entrepreneurs smell money, as they have with birthing tourism, ethics go out the window. Regarding the San Gabriel “maternity ward” case, Times Ching-Ching Ni summed it up by writing: “But inside, a new kind of international business thrived -– maternity wards for wealthy expectant mothers from across the Pacific.” Unfortunately, Congressional efforts to end birthright citizenship have stalled. But they need to be immediately revived before the “industry” grows further as it inevitably will without laws in place to stop it.