The Supreme Court may have settled the legal issues on birthright citizenship but the Trump administration says it leaves room to find ways to prevent pregnant women — particularly “birth tourists” — from reaching U.S. soil to take advantage of it.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the government can block women seeking to travel to the U.S. late in their pregnancies, calling it both a matter of health for the baby and a national security concern for America.
And acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department will take a more aggressive approach to the “birth tourism” companies that coach pregnant women on how to make the journey, including strategies to fool consular and border officials.
“Everybody should agree that it’s a violation of our laws if your intent in coming here if you’re pregnant is to have a child that’s a U.S. citizen,” Mr. Blanche told reporters on Wednesday.
He said birth tourism is a “booming industry” that will continue after the Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday.
The justices, in a 5-4 ruling, said the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees nearly every child born on American soil — including those born to illegal immigrant or temporary foreign visitor parents — full citizenship.
SEE ALSO: Supreme Court shuts down Trump’s attempt to change birthright citizenship
The decision overturned an executive order by President Trump that sought to bar recognition of citizenship for those children.
Immigrant-rights groups hailed the ruling as a victory.
Mr. Mullin, though, called the decision “dead wrong.”
“This is truly a national security risk,” he said on Fox News.
That echoed Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who dissented from Tuesday’s decision, and who envisioned women from an adversarial power coming to the U.S. to give birth, then returning home to raise those U.S. citizen children in an environment deeply hostile to American values.
That’s just the situation some experts say is taking place with China, where Chinese women make the journey, give birth then have those children raised under the communist regime.
This week’s ruling applies to children of both legal foreign visitors and illegal immigrants.
The illegal immigrants are a far larger problem, according to data from the Pew Research Center, which calculated that about 245,000 babies born in 2023 were to illegal immigrant mothers and fathers who also lacked full legal status.
About 15,000 babies were born to mothers here legally but temporarily, and whose fathers lacked permanent status.
Some of those are likely longer-term visitors, such as foreign students or skilled guest-workers. The number that are birth tourists — coming specifically to claim American citizenship for their children — is unknown.
But it does happen.
Justice Department lawyers told the Supreme Court there are hundreds of firms that offer birth tourism services.
One case, which the Justice Department prosecuted, involved what authorities described as a “maternity house” in Rancho Cucamonga, California. USA Happy Baby Inc. rented apartments to pregnant Chinese women who would give birth, then return to China a month or two later.
The operators coached the women on how to avoid scrutiny in their travel visa applications by claiming they were engaged in tourism and would only be here days or weeks — not the months they really intended to stay.
They were also coached to hide their pregnancies from border officers by wearing loose clothing and to understate how far along they were if the pregnancy was noticed. They were also told to select customs lines manned by older white officers, who were thought to give less scrutiny to the women.
Happy Baby charged up to $100,000 for VIP clients.
For illegal immigrants, the options are more general.
The administration has trimmed the number of illegal immigrants arriving at the border, and has moved to enforce “mass deportations” of those already here.
Mr. Mullin said Wednesday that Homeland Security is deporting 3,200 people a day.
Mr. Trump has also asked Congress to search for ways to work around the edges of the ruling. One possibility would be to have lawmakers pass legislation redefining who falls “under the jurisdiction” of the U.S. to exclude illegal immigrants and temporary visitors.
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