President Donald Trump's attempt to restrict birthright citizenship remains before the Supreme Court, but there's a new effort on Capitol Hill to attack the issue from a different angle. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has introduced legislation to crack down on birth tourism, which involves foreigners traveling to the U.S. in order to have American babies. Blackburn's Ban Birth Tourism Act would deny tourist visas to any foreign national who is coming here for the primary purpose of giving birth.
Birth tourism has become a multimillion-dollar industry in recent years, often involving wealthy citizens of places like China or Russia who pay large sums to be brought to the U.S. just as they are ready to give birth. "As of 2020, the Center for Immigration Studies estimated there are between 20,000 and 26,000 births per year to tourists in the U.S. for this purpose," says Andrew "Art" Arthur, fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies.
Arthur tells KTRH there is a good reason this business of having American babies is so lucrative. "If you give birth to a child in the United States and that child is automatically a citizen, then when that child turns 21 years old, he or she can petition for the parents to come here and get a green card," he says. "In addition, that child is guaranteed all the benefits that come with U.S. citizenship."
While Arthur supports Blackburn's legislation, he believes an even better solution to this issue would be the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Trump on birthright citizenship. "It would make more sense to put some sort of limit on birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment," he says. "Such that if you are born here to a non-citizen, to a tourist, or to a foreign student, that the child is not then a United States citizen."