Birth Tourism Networks Thrive Abroad and Inside the US

The State Department has announced that it is working to eradicate organized birth tourism networks operating in Africa and Europe. The descriptions of recent actions taken reveal that the scope of the problem is far greater than most Americans imagine.

“A US embassy in West Africa uncovered a sophisticated birth tourism network of more than 100 foreign nationals using fraudulent documents and visa ‘fixers’ to get themselves visas in order to get US citizenship for their children,” the department wrote on June 10 in an X post. “In Europe, a US embassy identified more than 400 suspected birth tourism cases since 2024. Investigators traced them to at least six companies that coached applicants on what to say in their visa interview, arranged US housing, and set up delivery plans,” another post read.

Breitbart’s John Binder noted, “An estimated 33,000 United States-born children are rewarded birthright American citizenship annually solely because their foreign parents arrived in the United States on a temporary visa, often a tourist visa, before they were born. Decades later, those American-born children can sponsor their parents for green cards.”

‘Much More Real Than You Think’

The birth tourism machinery is often not run undercover, like much of the underground economy for illegal immigration in the United States. Have My Baby in Miami, a concierge service in South Florida for foreigners wanting to have a baby on US soil, has helped with over 2,000 international births, according to the business’ website.

“The dream of having your child in a country with one of the best medical systems in the world is much more real than you think,” the service touts, carefully leaving out the larger motivation of automatic US citizenship for the baby.

“The booming business” boasts on its website that it offers “complete logistical support,” WPLG-TV in Fort Lauderdale reported in October 2025.

Far from shying away from such publicity, the company embraces it. An “In the Press” section on its website heralds media attention from outlets such as WPLG, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and NBC’s Today show.

On May 14, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee penned a letter to founder and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Wladimir Lorentz requesting pertinent “documents and information” on the service.

“While it is not inherently illegal for a foreign traveler to give birth in the United States, willfully misrepresenting one’s intentions to enter the country on a temporary visitor visa is a violation of current law and considered visa fraud,” the letter stated.

It’s hard to see how a company named Have My Baby in Miami that caters to foreigners can be successfully skirting the legal boundaries of fraud. If a woman announces she would like to visit the United States specifically to give birth to her child there, she will immediately be turned down for a visa by US officials. The woman knows it, and so does this company.

PBS Presents: Birth Tourism From the Chinese Point of View

The brazenness also extends to the palpable national security threat of Chinese citizens giving birth in the United States. In December 2023, PBS, while still lavishly funded by American taxpayers, aired a POV series documentary film titled How to Have an American Baby. The film focuses on “a kaleidoscopic voyage into the shadow economy catering to Chinese tourists who travel to the US to give birth for citizenship,” a page on the PBS website reads.

Major funding is provided by the taxpayer-supported National Endowment for the Arts and globalist progressive George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, a note at the bottom of the page indicates.

An accompanying discussion guide makes clear that the “documentary” is not aiming for objectivity. Filmmaker Leslie Tai “takes the audience beyond sensationalist headlines and into the hearts of pregnant women, hotel operators, drivers, nannies and a shadow industry that is hungry for profit,” the guide exclaims. “Telling the story from a distinctively Chinese perspective, Tai fearlessly presents uncomfortable images that challenge preconceived ideas, and compels audiences to reflect on the broader socio-political landscape that influences this particular pursuit of the American Dream.”

Aren’t you happy to hear that your taxpayer dollars were used to air a film on birth tourism made from a distinctly Chinese point of view?

At a time when even Democrats are waking up to the profound geopolitical threat to the United States posed by China, a PBS documentary is openly denouncing opponents of Chinese birth tourism.

“Compared to other immigration mechanisms, Chinese birth tourism has received disproportionate negative, often overtly racist attention from the media and politicians. In the 2010s, racist, anti-birthright citizenship discourse was common among Republican politicians, who referred to pregnant migrants to the US as ‘invasion by birth canal,’” the discussion guide claims.

“The politicization of anti-birth tourism sentiment culminated in 2020 when the Trump Administration passed a ruling that banned visitors from traveling to the US on temporary visas for the purpose of giving birth in the interest of protecting ‘national security,’” the text continues. “When pressed, however, State Department officials could not provide any actual security threat posed by birth tourists.”

Less than a year after the film first aired, in September 2024, a Southern California couple was convicted in a Los Angeles federal courtroom on one count of conspiracy and ten counts of money laundering for running a service that catered to pregnant Chinese women seeking to give birth in the United States. “Prosecutors alleged Michael Liu and Phoebe Dong’s company ‘USA Happy Baby’ helped several hundred birth tourists between 2012 and 2015 and charged the tourists as much as $40,000 for services including apartment rentals during their stays in Southern California,” the Associated Press reported.

Hiding the pregnancy is key. “Prosecutors said the pair worked with overseas entities that coached women on what to say during visa interviews and to authorities upon arriving in US airports and suggested they wear loose clothing to hide pregnancies and take care not to ‘waddle like a penguin,’” the wire service detailed.

It raises an important question, one that House investigators are keen to get an answer to: If waddling like a penguin won’t get you to Florida, how is “Have My Baby in Miami” still managing to thrive as a business, as its numerous satisfied foreign customers happily attest?