The Trump administration is moving quickly to crack down on what officials call birth tourism, even as new legal challenges to birthright citizenship hit a wall at the Supreme Court.
Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, announced that federal prosecutors and law enforcement will prioritize cases involving tourists, temporary visitors, and undocumented immigrants who travel to the United States to give birth. The move comes just one day after the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional right to birthright citizenship in a 6-3 decision that rejected the administration's effort to narrow the practice.
Speaking to reporters, Blanche outlined plans for the Department of Justice to work with Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI to pursue what he framed as exploitation of the immigration system. He suggested the administration would also use visa and application processes to discourage the practice.
Colin McDonald, an assistant attorney general in the national fraud division, reinforced the push with an office-wide memo directing DOJ staff to bring fraud charges in alleged birth tourism cases. "The Department of Justice will zealously protect the sanctity of United States citizenship by investigating and prosecuting those who fraudulently exploit our immigration system," McDonald wrote.
The Numbers Don't Add Up
The administration's focus stands in sharp contrast to the actual scope of the issue. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration think tank, somewhere between 20,000 and 26,000 births occur annually to women on tourist visas. That amounts to less than 1 percent of all babies born in the United States each year.
During Supreme Court oral arguments in the Trump v Barbara case this spring, the government's own lawyer, D John Sauer, acknowledged uncertainty about the scale of the problem. "No one knows for sure," he conceded, a stark admission given how central birth tourism had become to the administration's argument for eliminating birthright citizenship.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority in upholding the 14th Amendment's citizenship guarantee, criticized the administration's legal position directly. He found that officials had provided "scant evidence for this dramatically revisionist view" of the constitutional text.
Still, Republicans continue to frame the issue as a major threat. House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a press conference this week that birth tourism has been "grossly abused in recent years," claiming that foreign mothers simply arrive, deliver, and then access welfare benefits.
Vice President JD Vance also weighed in, disagreeing with Justice Amy Coney Barrett's decision to uphold birthright citizenship. He questioned whether the framers of the 14th Amendment intended for children born to undocumented immigrants or pregnant tourists to receive citizenship status and its accompanying benefits.
The Supreme Court loss has not deterred Trump from pursuing legislative solutions. The president is now pushing Congress to pass new laws creating exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to non-citizen parents lacking permanent legal status. Any such legislation would face a 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate, a hurdle that has repeatedly blocked divisive bills during Trump's second term.
Author James Rodriguez: "The administration is launching a prosecutorial campaign against a problem that barely exists, apparently hoping the public won't notice the math doesn't work."
Comments