The U.S. Department of Justice has charged nineteen people for running a “birth tourism” scheme out of California, where pregnant women from China would visit the country under false pretenses so that their children could be born on United States soil in order to obtain birthright citizenship.
According to Reuters, the charges are among the first to be brought “against operators and customers of birth tourism businesses,” signaling the Trump administration’s tough crackdown on those seeking to exploit our birthright citizenship laws.
“Three defendants were arrested on Thursday morning, while the 16 others named in the indictments unsealed on Thursday are ‘fugitive defendants,’ the prosecutors said,” reports Reuters. “The defendants are accused of links to three ‘birth houses’ operating in Southern California that catered to wealthy women from China and were dismantled by federal agents in March 2015.”
“Federal agents raided three apartment complexes and several other sites being used as maternity houses or hotels across Southern California in March in 2015, saying they catered to wealthy women from China who paid $15,000 to $80,000, depending on services offered,” the report continued. “The sweep was believed to mark the first such enforcement action against maternity tourism.”
Chinese customers of this birth tourism scheme were “coached on how to pass U.S. Consulate interviews in China by falsely stating they would stay in the United States for only two weeks and to trick U.S. Customs at entry ports by wearing loose clothing to conceal their pregnancies.”
U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna said in a statement that those charged were guilty of criminal schemes designed to defeat American immigration laws.
“These cases allege a wide array of criminal schemes that sought to defeat our immigration laws – laws that welcome foreign visitors so long as they are truthful about their intentions when entering the country,” Hanna said. “Some of the wealthy clients of these businesses also showed blatant contempt for the U.S. by ignoring court orders directing them to stay in the country to assist with the investigation and by skipping out on their unpaid hospital bills.”
President Trump and various conservatives have spoken out against U.S. birthright citizenship laws, which grants citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil without any stipulation about the immigration status of the child’s parents.
In October of last year, the president floated the idea of ending U.S. birthright citizenship with an executive order.
“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States … with all of those benefits. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end,” the president said.
The 14th Amendment reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Opponents of birthright citizenship claim that the phrase, “subject to jurisdiction thereof,” implies a full political allegiance that the children of illegal alien parents necessarily do not possess.
A poll later conducted by CSPAN showed that Americans overwhelmingly support the president in ending birthright citizenship by a margin of 72%-28%.
via Daily Wire
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