The Trump administration is preparing a nationwide crackdown on what it calls “birth tourism” networks groups it says help pregnant foreign nationals lie on visa applications so they can give birth in the United States and secure citizenship for their children. The move aligns with President Donald Trump’s broader effort to restrict both legal and illegal immigration and to challenge long‑standing interpretations of birthright citizenship.
According to an internal email reviewed by Reuters, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has instructed agents across the country to prioritise a new “Birth Tourism Initiative.” The operation aims to identify and dismantle organisations that facilitate travel to the US for the purpose of giving birth. While giving birth in the US is not illegal, misrepresenting the purpose of travel on visa applications can constitute fraud.
The White House argues that birth tourism imposes financial burdens on taxpayers and poses national security risks. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said “uninhibited birth tourism” is costly and noted that most countries do not grant automatic citizenship at birth. The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on specific investigations but confirmed it is monitoring networks that promote birth tourism.
A federal regulation introduced in 2020 during Trump’s first term already prohibits using tourist or business visas primarily to obtain citizenship for a newborn. Individuals involved in such schemes can face fraud or related charges. However, no US law outright bans birth tourism itself, and there are no official statistics on how many foreign nationals travel to the US for this purpose.
The Center for Immigration Studies estimated in 2020 that between 20,000 and 25,000 mothers engaged in birth tourism during a one‑year period between 2016 and 2017 a small fraction of the 3.6 million births recorded in the US in 2025.
Republicans have frequently cited birth tourism as justification for limiting access to citizenship. On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order instructing agencies not to recognise the citizenship of children born in the US if neither parent is a citizen or legal permanent resident a major break from more than a century of legal precedent. Federal judges blocked the order, and the case is now before the Supreme Court.
During oral arguments, US Solicitor General D. John Sauer said automatic citizenship had fuelled “a sprawling industry of birth tourism,” claiming that thousands of people from “potentially hostile nations” had travelled to the US to give birth, creating “a whole generation of American citizens abroad with no meaningful ties to the United States.”
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