For months, neighbors noticed a number of pregnant Asian women coming and going at all hours at an upscale townhouse development in suburban Los Angeles.
They finally found out the home was being used as a maternity center for Chinese and apparently also Taiwanese mothers paying thousands of dollars to give birth in the US so their children would automatically gain US citizenship, city officials said.
The discovery of the center where women stayed before and after delivering their babies at local hospitals was unusual and a possible sign that birthright citizenship is being exploited as a lucrative business, an immigration activist said.
“What this could suggest is ... they’re taking it to the next step,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates stricter limits on immigration.
“Whoever is organizing this type of operation is buying or leasing a home to become a clearing house. That’s a serious problem,” he said.
However, it’s not illegal.
Women from other countries have long traveled to the US legally on tourist or student visas and given birth because US law automatically entitles children born on US soil to citizenship.
While some stay under the false assumption that they too can gain citizenship if their child is US-born, many return to their home countries convinced a US birth certificate will afford their child more opportunities in the future.
Often, the women are wealthy and able to pay the steep costs of the trip and medical care.
Krikorian said that some travel agencies abroad are known to arrange such trips for individuals, but not to specialized clinics such as the one in San Gabriel.
Officials in the suburb that’s home to a large Asian population shut down the house for building code violations earlier this month after receiving a complaint about excessive noise, overcrowding and possible building permit violations, said Clayton Anderson, the city’s neighborhood improvement services manager.
Inspectors found seven newborns being kept in clear plastic bassinets in a kitchen converted to a nursery.
TAIWANESE CLIENTS
Just two mothers answered their bedroom doors when inspectors visited, he said. They told inspectors that they were Chinese and Taiwanese nationals and spoke little English. Other mothers were out shopping.
The mothers told officials their families had paid to send them to the US to give birth, Anderson said. He did not know how much the trips had cost.
After being interviewed by county child welfare workers, the women and babies were taken to another location since the townhomes were deemed unsafe for occupancy because structural walls had been breached.
The three homes, part of a five-unit condo development on a quiet residential street, had adjoining inside walls removed, and rooms were divided so mothers had separate spaces, Anderson said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not plan to investigate, because the case did not involve fraudulently obtained visas, agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice said.
Republican lawmakers have moved to limit automatic citizenship for children born in the US. Earlier this year, they said they hoped to trigger a Supreme Court review of the Constitutional amendment that grants automatic birthright citizenship or force Congress to take action with legislation they drafted on the issue.
Republican Representative Steve King of Iowa sponsored a bill that would limit automatic citizenship to people with at least one parent who is a citizen, a legal permanent resident or a military veteran, but there has been little movement on the legislation since it was introduced.
Some states, too, have tried to take steps to limit birthright citizenship. Last week, Arizona’s state Senate rejected illegal immigration bills that included measures intended to produce a US Supreme Court ruling on who is entitled to US citizenship at birth under the Constitution.
Representative Judy Chu, a Democrat in Southern California, said traveling to the US to give birth is not a common practice and defended automatic citizenship for children born in the US.
Chapman University law professor Maria Cianciarulo, who specializes in immigration, said she has never heard of a specialized maternity house, adding that birthing tourism is a tiny fraction of the flow of immigrants and tourists into the US.
Workers at the San Gabriel house were on Thursday restoring it to its original state as ordered by the city.
Property manager Dwight Chang was fined US$800 for construction without a permit and operating a business in a residential zone. He told city officials that he had rented the townhomes to a woman. A phone message left at Chang’s business, Ta Way Development in Arcadia, was not immediately returned.
Neighbor Yolanda Alvarez said she was suspicious after noticing so many pregnant women at the home.
“Different faces every day, but they were all Asian. They were all the same size, with big bellies,” Alvarez said. “I asked them at one point: ‘Sisters? Family?’ and they said: ‘No English.’”
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was