The State Department released a rule Thursday that will make it harder for pregnant foreigners to travel to the U.S. in what the Trump administration says is an effort to crack down on “birth tourism.”
The final rule, which will go into effect on Friday, clarifies that if consular officers have “reason to believe” a traveler seeking a nonimmigrant tourist or business visa will give birth during their stay in the United States, the officers will presume they are doing so “for the primary purpose of obtaining U.S. citizenship for the child.”
The visa applicant will then have to prove to the officer “a legitimate primary purpose” for their travel.
“This rule reflects a better policy, as birth tourism poses risks to national security,” the State Department said. “The birth tourism industry is also rife with criminal activity, including international criminal schemes, as reflected in federal prosecutions of individuals and entities involved in that industry.”
The new policy is the latest step in the Trump administration’s efforts to limit legal immigration to the United States.
Both as a candidate and during his tenure as president, Donald Trump has railed on the practice of granting U.S. citizenship to babies born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents.
“You can’t come into the country, you’re illegal, you come down, you sit down, you have your baby, and we take care of the baby for the next 85 years,” Trump said at the Orlando Sunshine Summit in November 2015. “The birthright citizenship, the anchor baby … it’s over, not going to happen,” he added later in the speech.
Just before the 2018 midterms, Trump suggested he might end the practice via executive order. However, that method drew several constitutional questions because it would have to override the 14th Amendment, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
Trump floated the idea again to reporters outside the White House in August. “We’re looking at that very seriously — Birthright citizenship. Where you have a baby on our land — you walk over the border, have a baby. Congratulations, the baby is now a U.S. citizen,” he said last year. “It’s — it’s, frankly, ridiculous.”
The State Department noted that it’s difficult to find a precise measure of how many children are born to women on visitor visas in the U.S., but estimated that the number is in the “thousands.”
The anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies estimated that there were 33,000 children born in the second half of 2016 and the first half of 2017 to women on tourist visas, but the group warns that figure is “a rough approximation, based on limited data.”
The new State Department rule will also codify a requirement that those traveling to the U.S. for medical treatment must “establish their ability to pay all costs associated with such treatment,” including travel and living costs.
Foreigners who wish to give birth at U.S. medical facilities may also be denied entry unless they can establish the birth requires “specialized medical treatment,” according to the rule.
Separately, DHS also announced Thursday it is reopening the comment period on a proposal that would allow the U.S. for the first time in history to impose application fees on asylum-seekers and raise fees for certain worker visa applications.
Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/23/trump-administration-cracks-down-on-birth-tourism-102713
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Rebecca Rainey
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