Washington, D.C. (August 10, 2020) –
A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies examines the practice, and negative impacts, of birth tourism in the United States and other developed countries, and recommends policies to minimize the practice of selling citizenship.
The U.S. and Canada are the only G7 nations with birthright citizenship policies; these have been exploited and contributed to the birth tourism industry, which encourages the practice of pregnant foreign mothers travelling to the United States or Canada on legal visas, received through fraudulent claims, with the sole intention of delivering their children on American or Canadian soil in order to secure citizenship for their newborns.
The Center for Immigration Studies estimates 20,000 to 26,000 possible birth tourists in the U.S. annually. In Canada, between 2010 and 2018, the number of children born to foreign mothers soared by 202 percent with 75 percent of births to foreign mothers occurring in just 25 hospitals. These numbers do not include the large number of illegal immigrants who migrate to North America to take advantage of the birthright citizenship policies. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that, in 2014, roughly 297,000 children were born to illegal aliens in the United States, costing up to $2.4 billion annually in Medicaid taxpayer dollars.
President Trump took action in January 2020 to limit birth tourism by specifying that giving birth in the U.S. is not a legitimate grounds for obtaining a visitor visa. The State Department has stopped issuing temporary visitor visas to pregnant female applicants who are planning to deliver their babies in the U.S. This report provides other policies that this administration or the next can take to limit the number of foreign nationals coming to the U.S. to give birth to a child who in later years can return to the U.S., at great expense to U.S. taxpayers, to take advantage of free public schools, in-state college tuition, low-interest student loans, federal education scholarships, and eventually sponsor family members through chain migration policies. In addition, these actions will also reduce the burden presently placed on the American healthcare system, both financially and physically, as hospitals are routinely abused by birth tourists.
More can be done to minimize this egregious practice that undermines the value of American citizenship. The report outlines six suggestions for the short term.
View the full report:
https://cis.org/Report/Stopping-Practice-Citizenship-Sale.
The recommendations include:
1. Designate an inter-agency taskforce to develop and implement a concrete methodology to accurately record birth tourism statistics.
2. Create a taskforce, perhaps within the Department of Health and Human Services, to study the rates at which illegal aliens are giving birth in U.S. hospitals, and the taxpayer costs associated with such health services
3. Expand visitor visa restrictions to pregnant foreign mothers by including on visa applications a specific question about intent to give birth in the U.S., and grant CBP officers at airports the authority to administer pregnancy tests for suspected birth tourism travelers on a discretionary basis.
4. Urge Congress to enact a law that allows for the imposition of penalties on birth tourists and empowers authorities to crack down on it. Similarly, state governments might be encouraged to use their authorities to discourage the practice.
5. Enact U.S. travel bans for parents found to have engaged in birth tourism.
6. Explore authorizing or directing hospitals to impose an upfront deposit from foreign mothers on non-immigrant visas seeking access to maternity care in the U.S., as is done in certain Canadian hospitals.
