The Trump administration is moving to aggressively target birth tourism despite a significant legal setback. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that federal prosecutors and law enforcement will prioritize combating the practice, where tourists, temporary visitors, or undocumented immigrants travel to the United States specifically to give birth and secure birthright citizenship for their children.
Blanche's declaration came the day after the Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, rejecting the administration's attempt to carve out exceptions. The ruling essentially blocked the government's legal path to restrict citizenship for children born to parents lacking permanent legal status.
Undeterred, the DOJ chief signaled a shift in strategy. "There's other things the federal government can do in the visa process, and the application process, to try to minimize or limit the opportunity of folks coming here not to visit, and not to do what they're saying they're doing on the tourist visa, but just to have a baby that can then be a US citizen," Blanche said. "What we have to do as Department of Justice is make sure our agents and the FBI are focused on stopping that."
The administration is also pushing Congress to act. President Trump is urging lawmakers to draft legislation that would establish exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to parents without permanent legal resident status, effectively seeking legislative remedies where courts have blocked executive action.
The scope of the birth tourism problem remains unclear. During Supreme Court oral arguments in the Trump v. Barbara case last April, the government's own lawyer, D John Sauer, conceded that the actual scale of birth tourism was unknown.
Author James Rodriguez: "The DOJ is banking on enforcement where the courts won't budge on policy, which could prove just as contentious if not more so."
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