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Texas Republican Rep. Brandon Gill is leading a congressional investigation into companies accused of helping foreign nationals travel to the United States to give birth in order to secure U.S. citizenship for their children.
Gill’s Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses recently sent letters to four companies involved in birth tourism services.
The businesses include Have My Baby in Miami, International Maternity Services, Doctores Para Ti and a clinic operated by Athiya Javid in San Diego. Gill requested documents detailing childbirth packages and materials allegedly used to coach foreign clients on obtaining temporary visas without disclosing plans to give birth in the United States.
“While it is not inherently illegal for a foreign traveler to give birth in the United States, willfully misrepresenting one’s intentions to enter the country on a temporary visitor visa is a violation of current law and considered visa fraud,” Gill wrote in a letter to executives at Have My Baby in Miami.
“The birth tourism industry relies on exploiting birthright citizenship as currently interpreted under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” he added.
In a social media video, Gill accused birth tourism companies of exploiting immigration laws.
“Have My Baby in Miami, that’s the name of an actual company that is facilitating birth tourism into the United States, where foreigners come in on visas, have children, then leave so that their children can remain American citizens,” Gill said.
“That’s a problem. The American people are sick of it, and my task force on the House Oversight Committee is going after these companies,” he added.
Supporters of stricter immigration policies have long criticized birth tourism and birthright citizenship policies under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
According to estimates cited in the report, roughly 33,000 children are born annually in the United States to parents on temporary visas, including tourist visas, and those children automatically receive U.S. citizenship under current interpretations of the Constitution. Once those children reach adulthood, they may legally sponsor parents for permanent residency through family-based immigration pathways.
