USA Happy Baby, birth tourism and a blockbuster Supreme Court case
USA Happy Baby, birth tourism and a blockbuster Supreme Court case
Bart Jansen, USA TODAY Sun, March 29, 2026 at 12:43 PM UTC
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WASHINGTON – The practice is called “birth tourism.”
Companies with names like USA Happy Baby and Star Baby Care offered to shepherd pregnant women from China – or any other country – into the United States to give birth to children recognized as U.S. citizens before returning home.
Women were coached to wear baggy clothing to hide their pregnancies and mislead customs officials about how long they would stay, according to federal criminal indictments against the enterprises. Star Baby Care said on its website that it “provided services to 8,000 pregnant women” spanning 20 years. USA Happy Baby said it charged VIP customers up to $100,000.
But the extent of birth tourism – and its threat to national security – is hotly contested. Estimates range from a "marginal" 2,000 babies a year to disputed allegations of 1.5 million over a 15-year span. The higher figure has made its way into congressional testimony and into arguments that the Supreme Court will hear April 1.
More: What history reveals about Trump’s move to limit birthright citizenship
1 / 0See people outside Supreme Court demonstrate for birthright citizenship in May 2025Olga Urbina and her child Ares Webster from Baltimore, MD, demonstrate outside the Supreme Court before justices hears oral arguments in Trump v. CASA, Inc. At issue in the case is if the Supreme Court should stay the district courts' nationwide preliminary injunctions on the Trump administration’s executive order ending birthright citizenship.
The justices will decide whether President Donald Trump can limit birthright citizenship by executive order despite the court's past interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution ratified more than 150 years ago. The high court has interpreted the amendment for more than 125 years as providing citizenship to nearly everyone born in the United States.
Trump and his allies contend citizenship was never intended for people delivering children on vacation. But opponents of the move, including congressional Democrats and 140 university professors, contend that the problem is exaggerated and that laws are already in place to combat birth tourism.
President Donald Trump speaks to the media as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche listen, after the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to the power of federal judges by restricting their ability to grant broad legal relief in cases as the justices acted in a legal fight over President Donald Trump's bid to limit birthright citizenship, in the Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington D.C., June 27, 2025.What's the dispute over the 14th Amendment?
The 14th Amendment 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.”
The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” has traditionally been understood to mean the children of diplomats. Native Americans, because of their tribal allegiance, were initially excluded but were awarded birthright citizenship under a 1924 law.
Federal judges repeatedly rejected Trump's executive order, which was signed on the first day of his second term, that aimed to restrict birthright citizenship.
“A lot of the government’s policy arguments, they’re beside the point because this is a rule that’s in the Constitution and so it’s not subject to policy debate at this point,” said Cody Wofsy, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is part of the case. “The reality is [birth tourism] is a tiny marginal issue that is already addressed by federal regulations that make it illegal.”
Trump's order denied birthright citizenship when the child’s mother was in the country without legal authorization or when the mother was visiting temporarily as a student, a worker or a tourist.
“Birthright Citizenship was not meant for people taking vacations to become permanent Citizens of the United States of America, and bringing their families with them, all the time laughing at the ‘SUCKERS’ that we are!” Trump said on social media May 15, 2025.
Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, listens as testimonies are presented during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on American birthright citizenship on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 10, 2026.'Staggering' vs. 'infinitesimal': Counting babies born to tourists is difficult
The figures attributed to birth tourism are highly disputed because the government doesn't count such births.
Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, a conservative think tank in Tallahassee, Florida, testified at a Senate hearing March 10 that an estimated 1.5 million people living in China have U.S. citizenship from births during the past 15 years.
Schweizer argued these people are educated in Chinese Communist Party schools with a distorted view of U.S. values and culture but can vote in elections and, upon turning 21, can bring in their parents as permanent residents.
“The scale of the exploitation is staggering, yet the U.S. federal government does not systematically track it,” Schweizer said.
But Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, found Schweizer's justification for the estimate lacking.
“He didn’t have anything to back it up," Durbin told USA TODAY. “When I asked for specifics, he’d give generalities."
The Center for Immigration Studies estimated in 2020 that more than 20,000 to 39,000 babies are born each year to birth tourists, based on federal figures about how many foreign-born mothers gave birth and how many showed up in the census for staying longer than a tourist.
But Jeremy Neufeld, a researcher at the Niskanen Center think tank in Washington, DC, sharpened his own pencil and called the center's figures an “egregious overestimate.” Neufeld argued that a fairer estimate would be fewer than 2,000 babies born to birth tourists each year.
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A group of 140 university professors told the Supreme Court in a written argument that birth tourism “accounts for an infinitesimal proportion of children who receive birthright citizenship each year," out of 3.6 million births annually.
Steven Camarota, who conducted the research at the Center for Immigration Studies, told USA TODAY the government could end the dispute by charting how many women entered the country on a foreign passport, stayed less than three months and left with an infant using a U.S. passport.
People demonstrated outside the Supreme Court before justices heard oral arguments on whether the court should reverse lower courts' efforts to block President Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship.Lawmakers disagree about whether birth tourism is a 'huge problem' or 'marginal'
Republicans and Democrats disagree about the severity of the threat from birth tourism.
“It’s a huge problem,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told USA TODAY. “Looking forward to seeing how the Supreme Court deals with that, because we’re being played.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told USA TODAY birth tourism was a “persistent concern.”
“It has been a blatant abuse of our immigration laws,” said Cruz, who joined a written argument in the Supreme Court case.
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, told USA TODAY there is a consensus not to allow birth tourism. But he said the impact sounds “marginal.”
“We don’t want it. It’s illegal. To the extent that there’s measures that can be taken to curb it, there is a consensus we should do it,” Welch said. “Fortunately, the facts indicate that it’s a pretty marginal issue but obviously one of spectacular concern.”
President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the James S. Brady Briefing Room at the White House, on June 27, 2025, in Washington D.C., following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits the application of birthright citizenship.Trump changed visa policy to discourage birth tourism
Opponents of Trump’s executive order said laws already on the books can prevent birth tourism.
The State Department changed its visa policy in 2020 during Trump’s first administration to discourage women from delivering children during tourist visits.
The change explicitly allowed the department to reject a visa applicant if the consular official “has reason to believe” the tourist will give birth during her stay and whose primary purpose is to obtain U.S. citizenship for the child.
“If we do have a problem with birth tourism – and I don't think there's any evidence that we do, but if we do – then the solution is to enforce the law on the books and not to deprive American families of the citizenship of their children born on U.S. soil or force them to prove their lineage or lose their citizenship,” Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia, said at the Senate hearing March 10.
People demonstrated May 15, 2025 outside the Supreme Court before justices heard oral arguments in Trump v. CASA, Inc., a birthright citizenship case.'America's way of life is not for sale,' investigator says
Federal indictments in 2019 accused 19 people in Southern California with conspiring to enable tourists to deliver children in the United States. Because there was no dispute at the time that the children were citizens, the charges focused on tourism companies educating parents about how to lie to obtain visas, money laundering or filing false tax returns.
Dongyuan Li, then 41, of Irvine, California, was accused of operating You Win USA, based in Orange County. The company advertised it had served 500 Chinese women. The indictment said she used 20 apartments to house pregnant women and charged each customer $40,000 to $80,000.
Li pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit visa fraud and visa fraud. In December 2019, U.S. District Judge James Selna sentenced her to the 10 months in jail she had already served while charges were pending.
Li’s lawyer, Thomas O’Brien, said her case wasn’t about birth tourism because the government confirmed the State Department would issue a visa to foreigners who give birth in the United States. O'Brien argued that the case was about helping clients lie on their visa applications. He also said the number of You Win USA’s fraudulent visas wasn’t “nearly as extensive as the government publicly trumpeted.”
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US Attorney General Pam Bondi swears in the new Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, alongside Mullin's wife Christine Mullin, during a ceremony hosted by US President Donald Trump the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 24, 2026. The US Senate on Monday confirmed Mullin as the new chief of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the agency reeling from a partial government shutdown as it works to enforce President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
Michael Wei Yueh Liu, then 53, of Rancho Cucamonga, California, and Jing Dong, then 42, of Fontana, who operated USA Happy Baby, were convicted of conspiracy and 10 counts of international money laundering. In December 2024, U.S. District Judge Gary Klausner sentenced both to 41 months in prison.
Liu and Dong charged clients $20,000 to $40,000 – and up to $100,000 for VIPs – to deliver children in the United States, according to prosecutors. The company received $3.4 million in international wire transfers during a two-year period, prosecutors said.
Liu and Dong helped Chinese women file false visa applications with the State Department by lying about the purpose of their visits and the length of time they expected to stay, prosecutors said. Liu and Dong coached women about how to pass the U.S. Consulate interview in China, to deceive U.S. customs officials and to enter through ports perceived to have lax screening such as Hawaii rather than Los Angeles, prosecutors said.
Liu and Dong “ran a lucrative business that ran roughshod over U.S. laws,” prosecutors told the judge in a sentencing memo. “For tens of thousands of dollars each, defendant helped his numerous customers deceive U.S. authorities and buy U.S. citizenship for their children.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Birth tourism. birthright citizenship and a big Supreme Court case
Source: “AOL Breaking”
