‘America is not for sale’: Marco Rubio announces visa ban targeting birth tourism operators

WASHINGTON, DC: Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the State Department will begin denying visas to foreigners who operate or are otherwise involved in commercial birth tourism programs.

The move uses the authority granted to the secretary under the Immigration and Nationality Act to declare a foreigner inadmissible to the US on foreign policy grounds.

The policy covers people who own, operate, and manage commercial birth tourism networks.

It also targets visa “fixers” who coach applicants on how to lie, along with foreign doctors who knowingly help arrange travel and the fraudulent use of Medicaid. Certain family members may also be affected.

Marco Rubio targets commercial birth tourism networks

“The United States will not allow foreigners to exploit our immigration system,” he said.

Rubio said these networks advertise openly, guide clients through false visa applications, and charge tens of thousands of dollars to arrange births in the United States.

Pregnant foreigners can still travel to the United States, and the restrictions apply only to people whom the administration determines are knowingly involved in the commercial side of birth tourism.

The State Department's Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force revoked more than 600 visas in its first month, and Rubio said in August that American citizenship is “not for sale.”

US expands crackdown on birth tourism networks

Rubio’s announcement came hours before President Donald Trump greeted Chinese President Xi Jinping at Joint Base Andrews for a three-day state visit, although the policy does not name any specific country.

The restrictions follow the Supreme Court’s June 30 decision rejecting Trump’s birthright citizenship order and two executive orders he signed in August, which shifted the administration’s birth tourism efforts to the State Department and Department of Homeland Security.

Rep Nancy Mace, R-SC, introduced a bill last week that would classify recruiting or harboring a pregnant foreign national for birth tourism purposes as trafficking, carrying penalties of up to 15 years per offense.

“America is not the world’s maternity ward,” the South Carolina Republican said.

Steven Camarota, a research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, told a House Oversight task force this month that an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children were born to birth tourists in the United States over the last decade.

His testimony highlighted the scale of the industry the administration is attempting to curb by enforcing visa rules rather than pursuing the citizenship order blocked by the courts.

The new restrictions represent the administration's most direct effort yet to tighten controls on the birth tourism industry, using consular discretion to determine who receives a US visa rather than changing the law governing children born on American soil.