Feds Raid California 'Maternity Hotels' for Birth Tourists

[dixiegrrrrl]

I had heard of this, but thought it was a wild tale....turns out, it is a huge business, with over 40,000 tourist births a year!
Please read the article which lists the various frauds involved in birth tourism.

Southern California apartment complexes that doubled as "maternity hotels" for Chinese women who want made-in-America babies were raided early Tuesday, capping an unprecedented federal sting operation, officials said.

NBC News was on the scene as Homeland Security agents swept into the luxury Carlyle in Irvine, California, which housed pregnant women and new moms who allegedly forked over $40,000 to $80,000 to give birth in the United States.

"I am doing this for the education of the next generation," one of the women told NBC News.

Snip:
The organizers who allegedly ran the Carlyle site, Chao Chen and Dong Li, used a website to drum up business, touting the benefits of a child with U.S. citizenship: 13 years of free education, low-cost college financial aid, less pollution, and a path for the entire family to emigrate when the child becomes an adult.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-raid-california-maternity-hotels-birth-tourists-n315996

[snooper2]

1. Nope, been going on for a long time...

We have that whole 14th amendment thing though...


"Birth tourism is travel to another country for the purpose of giving birth in that country. Reasons for the practice include access to the destination country's healthcare system, circumvention of communist China's one-child policy and (in countries that recognize jus soli) birthright citizenship for the child. The United States and Canada are popular destinations for birth tourism. Another target of birth tourism is Hong Kong, where the right of abode is awarded at birth instead of citizenship.

To stop birth tourism, Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom have a modified jus soli, granting citizenship by birth only when at least one parent is a citizen of the country or a legal permanent resident who has lived in the country for several years. However, the United States grants unconditional citizenship by birth."



In California, three Chinese-owned "baby care centers" offer expectant mothers a place to give birth to an American citizen for a fee of $14,750, which includes shopping and sightseeing trips. "We don't encourage moms to break the law — just to take advantage of it," explains Robert Zhou, the agency's owner. Zhou says that he and his wife have helped up to 600 women give birth in the United States within the last five years. In fact, they started the business after traveling to the United States to have a child of their own. Zhou explains that the number of agencies like his has soared in the past five years.[5] Zhou believes that a cheaper education is often a motivating factor, and his pitch to prospective clients includes the notion that public education in the United States is "free." One of his clients, Christina Chuo, explains that her parents "paid a huge amount of money for their education" in the United States because they were foreign students; having an American citizen child permits her child to acquire the same education at a lower tuition. She also noted that she and her husband were not interested in permanently immigrating to the United States, "except, perhaps, when they retire."[6] Other options exist where mainlanders can deliver babies in Saipan, U.S. Northern Mariana Islands, where the cost is 70,000 yuan and does not require any U.S. citizenship.[7] Congress representatives such as Phil Gingrey have tried to put an end to birth tourism, who said these people are "gaming the system".[8] More than 70% of the newborns in Saipan have birth tourism PRC parents who take advantage of the 45 day visa free visitation rules of the island and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to ensure that their children can have American citizenship.[9] On October 18, 2014, the North American Chinese language daily Shijie Ribao 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.[10]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_tourism

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Thank you for that additional info, snooper.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

3. K & R for visibility

Thanks for posting.

[Hekate]

4. Might be time to change the law, and I never thought I'd say that.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. The (mostly) Reich Wingers have been complaining about "anchor babies"

in reference to Latinos. I had not even thought about Chinese or other Asians. Nor that there could be a racket in births.

the whole issue of immigration needs a fresh look. Britain and the EU are in unrest over the issue also.

[Mariana]

8. We'd have to amend the Constitution.

As of now, it says:

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.

[MiniMe]

5. I'm trying to figure out how "less pollution" is a factor

Maybe I'm just tired, but how is giving birth in California causing less pollution?

[Lancero]

6. I think it's referring to how poor the air in China is...

It's gotten so bad in some places that some people have taken to selling canned air.

[Mariana]

9. It think it means the child can live where there is less pollution.

Not that it's causing less pollution.

[MiniMe]

12. That makes sense, thanks

[bullwinkle428]

10. Let's make it clear (before the wing-nuts go apeshit) - these are not dirt-poor

women who don't have two nickels to rub together. These are relatively wealthy women who just want the kid to have a U.S. passport.

You know it's not going to stop tea-baggers from developing their own "Obama travel agency" memes...

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Not only do they have money, they are ripping off the hospitals

The article points out they pretend to be poor in order to pay little or nothing for medical care.