Birth tourism
Other reasons for birth tourism include access to public schooling, healthcare, sponsorship for the parents in the future,[2] hedge against corruption and political instability in the children’s home country.
In an effort to discourage birth tourism, Australia, France, Pakistan, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom have modified their citizenship laws at different times, mostly by granting citizenship by birth only if at least one parent is a citizen of the country or a legal permanent resident who has lived in the country for several years.
In Africa, Chad, Lesotho and Tanzania grant unconditional birthright citizenship,[6] as do some in the Asian-Pacific region including Fiji, Pakistan, and Tuvalu.
[12][13] The center also estimated in 2012 that total births to temporary immigrants in the United States (e.g., tourists, students, guest workers) could be as high as 200,000.
"[16] One option for mainland Chinese mothers to give birth is Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, where the cost is cheaper and travel does not require a U.S.
[17] More than 70% of the newborns in Saipan have birth tourist PRC parents who take advantage of the 45-day visa-free visitation rules of the territory and the Covenant of the Northern Mariana Islands to ensure that their children can have American citizenship.
[18] At least one airline in Hong Kong requests that women who are "observed to have a body size or shape resembling a pregnant woman" submit to a pregnancy test before they are allowed to fly to Saipan.
[20] The industry is difficult to close down since it is not illegal for a pregnant woman to travel to the U.S.[20] On March 3, 2015, Federal agents in Los Angeles conducted a series of raids on three "multimillion-dollar birth-tourism businesses" expected to produce the "biggest federal criminal case ever against the booming 'anchor baby' industry", according to The Wall Street Journal.
[26] On October 18, 2014, the North American Chinese language Daily World Journal reported that for several weeks the immigration authorities at LAX had been closely questioning pregnant Chinese women arriving there from China, and in many cases denying them entry to the United States and repatriating them within 12 hours, often on the same airplane on which they had flown to the United States.
[27] In March 2015, federal agents conducted raids on a series of large-scale maternity tourism operations bringing thousands of mainland Chinese women intent on giving their children American citizenship.
In January 2019, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations led to the arrest of three southern California operators of "multimillion-dollar birth-tourism businesses" catering primarily to Chinese nationals.
[29] Effective January 24, 2020, a new policy was adopted that made it more difficult for pregnant foreign women to come to the US to give birth on US soil to ensure their children become US citizens.
The country will no longer issue temporary B-1/B-2 visitor visas to applicants seeking to enter the United States for birth tourism.
[30][31] In December 2020, federal prosecutors charged six Long Island residents who were operating a birth tourism scheme that cost U.S. taxpayers over $2 million.
A Québec birth certificate entitles a student enrolled in that province to pay university tuition at the lower in-province rate;[38] on average this was $3760/year in 2013.
Mexican women sometimes engage in birth tourism to the United States or Canada to give their children U.S. or Canadian citizenship.
The 2001 court case Director of Immigration v. Chong Fung Yuen affirmed that this right extends to the children of mainland Chinese parents who themselves are not residents of Hong Kong.
[46] As a result, there has been an influx of mainland mothers giving birth in Hong Kong in order to obtain right of abode for the child.
[47] This has resulted in backlash from some circles in Hong Kong to increased potential stress on the territory's social welfare net and education system.
The situation came to a boiling point in early 2012, with Hong Kongers taking to the street to protest the influx of birth tourism from mainland China.
The amendment was preceded by media reports of heavily pregnant women claiming political asylum, who expected that, even if their application was rejected, they would be allowed to remain in the country if their new baby was a citizen.
[51] Irish birthright citizenship could also serve for immigration purposes abroad: the case of Chen v Home Secretary involved a Chinese woman living temporarily in the UK who travelled to Belfast to give birth, for the purpose of using her daughter's Irish (and thus European Union) citizenship to obtain the permanent right to reside in the UK as a parent of a dependent EU citizen.
For example, Germany, like 14 other EU countries, forbids surrogacy, and a baby born abroad to a foreign surrogate mother has no right to German citizenship.
