US to tighten visa rules to fight birth tourism

The Trump administration is coming out on Thursday (US time) with new visa restrictions on “birth tourism,” in which women travel to the US to give birth so their children can have a coveted US passport.

Visa applicants deemed by consular officers to be going to the US primarily to give birth will now be treated like other foreigners coming to the US for medical treatment, according to State Department guidance on Wednesday.

Applicants will have to prove they are going for medical treatment and they can pay for it.

The rules will take effect on Friday.

The practice of going to the US to give birth is fundamentally legal, although there are scattered cases of authorities arresting operators of birth tourism agencies for visa fraud or tax evasion.

And women are often honest about their intentions when applying for visas and even show signed contracts with doctors and hospitals.

The Trump administration has been restricting all forms of immigration, but he has been particularly plagued by the issue of birthright citizenship — anyone born in the US is considered a citizen, under the Constitution.

He has railed against the practice and threatened to end it but scholars and members of his administration have said it’s not so easy.

How do you know?

Regulating tourist visas for pregnant women is one way to get at the issue, but it raises questions about how officers would determine whether a woman is pregnant to begin with, and whether a woman could get turned away by border officers who suspect she may be just by looking at her.

Consular officers don’t have the right to ask during visa interviews whether a woman is pregnant or intends to become so.

But they would have to determine whether a visa applicant would be going to the US primarily to give birth.

Birth tourism is a lucrative business in both the US and other countries. American companies take out advertisements and charge up to US$80,000 to facilitate the practice, offering hotel rooms and medical care.

The US has been cracking down on the practice since before Trump took office.

There are no figures on how many foreign women travel to the US specifically to give birth.

The Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates stricter immigration laws, estimated that in 2012, about 36,000 foreign-born women gave birth in the US and then left the country.

The draft rule is “intended to address the national security and law enforcement risks associated with birth tourism, including criminal activity associated with the birth tourism industry,” a State Department spokesperson said.