Sen. Blackburn targets birth tourism, 'buying American citizenship' in support of Trump's immigration agenda

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced caller authorities Tuesday aimed astatine dismantling the multimillion-dollar commencement tourism manufacture that allows overseas nationals to usage America’s migration strategy to unafraid automatic citizenship for their children.

The Ban Birth Tourism Act, introduced successful the U.S. Senate, would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to state inadmissible immoderate overseas nationalist seeking a tourer visa for the superior intent of giving commencement successful the United States.

Those births automatically trigger U.S. citizenship for the child, a long-criticized loophole that opens the doorway to aboriginal family-sponsored migration.

SENATE REPUBLICANS INTRODUCE BILL TO REFORM BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP, FOLLOWING TRUMP’S CONTROVERSIAL ORDER

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced caller authorities Tuesday aimed astatine dismantling the multimillion-dollar commencement tourism manufacture that allows overseas nationals to usage America’s migration strategy to unafraid automatic citizenship for their children. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Blackburn’s bill, which was work doubly and referred to committee, includes a proviso to support morganatic aesculapian travelers. If the superior crushed for introduction is aesculapian attraction alternatively than citizenship acquisition, those cases would not beryllium blocked.

The propulsion comes arsenic the Trump medication intensifies its absorption connected restoring migration integrity successful the president’s 2nd term. During his archetypal term, President Trump repeatedly vowed to extremity automatic citizenship for the children of amerciable immigrants and tourists. (JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

In 2020, the State Department nether his medication began denying visas to suspected commencement tourists, a determination hailed by migration enforcement advocates.

Birth tourism is acold from a fringe phenomenon. According to blimpish migration argumentation analysts, the manufacture accounts for at slightest 33,000 births annually to women connected impermanent visas. These children, upon turning 21, tin legally sponsor their parents for greenish cards, offering a backdoor into the U.S. migration system. 

A 2015 study by the Center for Immigration Studies estimated the signifier generates millions of dollars for companies that specialize successful bringing large foreigners, chiefly from Russia and China, to the U.S. These firms often complaint tens of thousands of dollars for packages that see visa coaching, infirmary stays, and luxury accommodations.

President Trump has moved to extremity birthright citizenship during his 2nd administration. (Katie Muir Stankiewicz/Exchange Club of Mooresville and Lake Norman)

In 1 of the largest national crackdowns to date, the former Trump administration's Department of Justice successful 2019 charged astir 20 individuals successful Southern California for operating extended commencement tourism networks targeting Chinese nationals.

Prosecutors accused the businesses of coaching clients to prevarication to migration officials astir the intent of their travel, a maneuver communal among specified operations.