Shibbir Ahmed, Washington DC — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals who knowingly engage in or facilitate commercial “birth tourism” to the United States. Under the policy, announced September 23, the State Department said it will use Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to restrict visa issuance to people involved in commercial birth-tourism operations. The policy specifically targets owners, operators and managers of birth-tourism networks, visa “fixers” who coach applicants to commit fraud, foreign medical providers who knowingly facilitate such travel, and others who knowingly support or enable the practice.
Rubio said foreign commercial birth-tourism networks have exploited the U.S. immigration system by charging large sums of money to arrange births in the United States for the purpose of obtaining U.S. citizenship for children. The statement also accused some networks of coaching foreign nationals to provide false information on visa applications and of facilitating fraudulent use of Medicaid.
“The Trump Administration is using every tool at our disposal to defend the integrity of U.S. citizenship, protect American public benefits and U.S. taxpayers from exploitation, and safeguard our national security,” Rubio said in the statement.
The State Department has already prohibited birth tourism as a permissible purpose for a U.S. visitor visa. Its current visitor-visa guidance defines birth tourism as travel to the United States primarily to give birth so that the child obtains U.S. citizenship, and states that such travel is not permissible on a visitor visa.
The department previously introduced specific rules addressing birth tourism in 2020. Under those rules, consular officers were directed to deny B-visa applications when they had reason to believe an applicant’s primary purpose for traveling to the United States was to give birth in order to obtain U.S. citizenship for the child.
The newly announced policy goes beyond the individual seeking to travel for birth tourism by specifically targeting people and organizations that facilitate or profit from the practice. According to Rubio’s statement, certain family members of individuals covered by the restrictions may also be subject to the new visa restrictions.
The announcement comes as the State Department has continued to expand visa screening and vetting measures. On September 18, the department announced that, effective October 1, online-presence review would be expanded to additional nonimmigrant visa categories, saying the screening process is intended to identify applicants who may be inadmissible or who fail to establish eligibility for the visa requested.
The new birth-tourism policy is being implemented under existing provisions of U.S. immigration law rather than through a change to the statutory citizenship rules themselves. The announcement specifically concerns visa restrictions on people involved in or facilitating commercial birth tourism.
