Mark Krikorian, head of the Center for Immigration Studies, said, “What we’re doing is conferring citizenship on people who don’t have a connection to this country. The idea that visitors from abroad who intentionally come to give birth to U.S. citizens would have been considered absurd by the framers of the (14th) Amendment.”
Birth tourism – an industry that helps wealthy foreign women give birth in the United States and get citizenship for their babies – appears to be growing in California, according to the Sacramento Bee. The thousands of dollars these women spend later gives their children easy access to American universities and jobs. It also opens up green cards for the entire family after the child becomes 21.
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 7,719 children were born in the United States to mothers who lived overseas. That is an increase of almost 55 percent since 2000. NCHS data likely understate the totals, critics say, because it only includes information reported by parents during hospital stays. No one knows the actual number of birth tourists but the trend is on the rise. There are more than 40 maternity operations that host 1,000 women in the Los Angeles area alone.
Birth tourists typically enter the United States on a tourist visa when their pregnancy is near term. They give birth and recuperate in style while their baby gets top-notch care. After spending about $15,000 for the whole process, the mothers return home with their U.S. passport-bearing baby in tow.
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