US takes aim at Chinese birth tourism
Print Edition
FEDERAL agents searched more than a dozen homes on Tuesday in a crackdown on so-called maternity tourism operators who arrange for pregnant Chinese women to give birth in the US, where their babies automatically become American citizens.
The Tuesday crackdown on three alleged maternity tourism rings may be the biggest yet by federal homeland security agents who say that, while pregnant women may travel to the United States, they cannot lie about the purpose of their trip when applying for a visa.
Birth tourism has been reported in many countries, but authorities say the most recent cases in California have catered to rich Chinese amid a boom in tourism from China’s mainland. It is unclear how many women travel to the US for such purposes.
Shortly after sunrise on Tuesday, federal agents swarmed an upscale apartment complex in the city of Irvine where authorities say a birth tourism business charged pregnant women US$50,000 for lodging, food and transportation.
Investigators said women were coached to lie about their travel plans when applying for tourist visas and were promised they would receive Social Security identification numbers and US passports for their babies before returning to China.
The business netted its owners hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past two years and helped Chinese tourists deliver more than 400 US babies, the court papers said.
No arrests were made or charges filed. Investigators conducted the searches in Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.
Chinese Embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan said in response to the raids that compared with “4 million people traveling between our two countries every year, these cases are sporadic. The government always requests overseas Chinese citizens to abide by the laws of their resident countries.”
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