US authorities have launched a new campaign to uncover so-called “birth tourism” schemes that allow foreign women to travel to the United States to give birth and secure citizenship for their newborns, according to Reuters. The initiative marks another step in President Donald Trump’s broader push to limit immigration, both legal and illegal.
According to an internal email reviewed by Reuters, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has begun a “Birth Tourism Initiative” aimed at exposing networks that help women conceal their true reasons for entering the country. Investigators will look for cases involving visa fraud and organised operations that arrange travel and accommodation for expectant mothers.
“Uninhibited birth tourism poses a tremendous cost to taxpayers and threatens our national security,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly, adding that most countries do not automatically grant citizenship at birth.
While giving birth in the US isn’t illegal, federal officials say they will focus on violations involving false visa applications or financial crimes. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the agency is aware of groups facilitating such travel, stressing the goal is to safeguard the integrity of US immigration systems.
The practice of birth tourism came under renewed scrutiny after Trump took office in January 2025. Saying citizenship laws were being misused, he signed an executive order to deny citizenship to children born in the US to non-citizen parents. Several federal courts blocked that order, however, and the dispute now awaits a Supreme Court decision.
Supporters of Trump’s policy argue that birth tourism has created an industry that exploits the 14th Amendment’s right to citizenship by birth. Critics, meanwhile, say that denying citizenship based on parentage undermines constitutional principles and turns newborns into legal pawns.
Although there are no official statistics, the Center for Immigration Studies estimated in 2020 that about 20,000 to 25,000 women traveled to the US for birth tourism in a single year, a small fraction of America’s total births.
ICE has pledged to pursue fraud cases linked to the practice. In past investigations, such schemes have led to federal convictions: one in California targeted luxury “birth houses” serving wealthy women from China. The agency said its new effort aims to stop similar operations and ensure that lawful immigration processes are not abused.
