“Birth tourism” alive and well

Another promise discarded by Kyl and McCain

Dozens of outraged residents of a Southern California suburb are protesting against a hilltop home they say serves as a maternity center for Chinese mothers — on tourist visas — paying thousands of dollars to give birth to new American citizens. While awaiting the birth of their babies, the mothers are taken to tourist destinations.

The San Bernardino Sun reports on the thriving birth tourism business catering to pregnant Chinese women who have come to Chino Hills, California to deliver their American citizen “anchor babies.”

In August 2010, we wrote that the issue of birthright citizenship — an inappropriate adaptation of the 14th Amendment — was getting another look by the most unlikely of people. Arizona’s own amnesty architects, Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl, along with Sen. Lindsey Gramnesty (R-SC) each said they intended to revisit the issue, and would look at the advisability of a constitutional amendment that would repeal the citizenship provisions. The amendment was adopted in 1868 after the Civil War. Its intent was to allow American-born children of freed African-born slaves to have all of the rights and privileges of citizenship. It was necessary then, but has no relevancy today.

But neither lame duck Kyl, now retiring, nor John McCain have lifted a finger to address this massive and underreported problem. American-born babies are instant citizens who are conduits for “family reunification” also known as “chain migration,” allowing for the entire family to gain access to the USA by virtue of the American-born relative.

Birthright Citizenship is the costly, automatic granting of citizenship to children born within a nation’s borders or territories. The United States and Canada are the world’s only industrialized nations to still offer such an extravagant gift to both tourists and illegal aliens. Not a single country in Europe —  the continent liberals often cite for its supposedly superior views on everything from judicial rulings and government health care to high tax rates — grants automatic citizenship.  Check out the list here.

This 2010 Washington Post article tells of 90-day tourist visas then selling to pregnant women for the equivalent of nearly $15,000 in China. There is a growing business of specialty resorts with maternity suites, specifically to ensure American citizenship for the newborns. Mothers from Middle Eastern nations are also coming here to deliver their babies.

The Tucson Medical Center right here in Arizona has a long history of actively recruiting expectant mothers in Mexico, offering them a “birth package.”  Apparently that is another issue that has slipped under McCain’s radar.

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