Sat, Mar 26, 2011 page7

• US site for Asian maternity tourists shut down

  • AP, SAN GABRIEL, California
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  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.’”
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