In southern Florida’s Sunny Isles Beach, Russian tourists Anna and Helen sipped coffee with their husbands and newborn babies: a common scene in what has become a prized destination for well-off foreigners looking to secure US citizenship for their children.
Under the shadow of luxury skyscrapers — among them Trump Towers — exists an army of well-dressed women, either pregnant or pushing top-of-the-line strollers. Most are Russian or from former Soviet countries.
The weather, white-sand beaches and dazzling turquoise waters are common reasons given for traveling to give birth in the city of 20,000 people north of Miami.
However, one 34-year-old, who gave her name only as Anna, was more direct.
“For the American passport!” she told reporters.
She arrived in the US while expecting now two-month-old Melania.
She and compatriot Helen, mother to a three-month-old, said that tens of thousands of US dollars and months of planning went into their trips.
The attraction is clear.
US President Donald Trump does not like it, but according to the US constitution, children born on US soil automatically gain citizenship, opening up highly sought-after opportunities to study and work.
Asked why Sunny Isles, Anna said: “Feel home, lot of Russian.”
Upon turning 21, baby Melania would also be able to sponsor visas for her parents to immigrate to the US — another policy that has disgruntled Trump.
The trend is big business: Miami Mama, a company in neighboring Hallandale Beach, has been organizing travel packages for Russian mothers since 2009.
Charging between US$6,900 and US$49,000, it coordinates everything from interpreters and apartments to medical care and citizenship documents, the firm’s Web site showed.
None of this is illegal, according to US immigration laws.
However, according to the National Broadcasting Corp, the FBI raided Miami Mama in 2017, arresting one employee for making false statements in federal documents to obtain passports for children.
Miami Mama — whose logo shows a pregnant woman against the backdrop of a US flag — did not respond to requests for comment.
So-called “birth tourism” to the US is not just popular with Russians. Expectant Chinese parents have for years traveled to California, while South Americans — particularly Brazilians — prefer Florida.
A tentative estimate in 2015 by the Center for Immigration Studies — a conservative group that advocates curbs on immigration — suggested that maternity tourism to the US could account for about 36,000 births each year.
However, there is no reliable data on how many US citizens the practice creates.
In 2014, Vera Muzyka, head of a firm helping Russian mothers in Miami, told the Moscow Times that in the city, 40 to 60 babies were being born each month to citizens of Russia or former Soviet countries.
Sunny Isles Beach earned itself the nickname “Little Moscow” from about 2010, when Russian beauty salons, supermarkets, restaurants and real-estate agents started to crop up.
Nowadays, you are more likely to find syrnikis — a type of sweet cheese pancake — than Cuban croquetas, while dried fish has become a staple bar snack.
While southern Floridians are used to seeing shop signs in English and Spanish, in Sunny Isles it is English and Russian — with real-estate offices, notaries and businesses offering “passport services” the most common around town.
A 2017 report by the Daily Beast said that many Russian families stay in luxury Trump Tower condominiums.
However, while connections between Trump and the Kremlin have been under investigation for more than two years, there is no evidence that the president benefits from Russian tourism in Florida.
Suspicious of the media, most of Sunny Isles Beach’s Russians would not speak to reporters, and those who did preferred to remain anonymous or give only their first name.
That included Kate, eight months pregnant with her fourth child, who would only tell reporters: “We plan to give birth.”
Entering a specialty Russian supermarket with her husband and children, the 35-year-old added — true to form — that it was the balmy climate that attracted them to Florida.
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