For fifteen years, birth tourism operators charged Chinese nationals $80,000 a head to manufacture American citizens – and Washington, DC did nothing.
Now Congress is done waiting for the Supreme Court to fix what politicians refused to.
Nancy Mace just introduced a bill that would lock up birth tourism operators for 30 years – and the networks running this scam just found out the free ride is over.
Mace Classifies Birth Tourism Operators as Traffickers
Mace's "American Citizenship Integrity Act" treats anyone who recruits, transports, or harbors a foreign national for the purpose of birth tourism the same way federal law treats human traffickers.
Individual facilitators face up to 15 years in prison per offense.
Criminal organizations running these schemes face up to 30 years.
The bill creates the American Citizenship Integrity Interagency Task Force – co-chaired by the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security – to dismantle birth tourism operations with international law enforcement partners.
A dedicated federal prosecutor in every judicial district would be assigned specifically to citizenship fraud cases.
And anyone convicted of fraud related to birth tourism faces denaturalization proceedings – meaning the citizenship itself can be stripped.
"American citizenship isn't a travel souvenir or a commodity for sale," Mace told Breitbart News. "Birth tourism is an abuse of our immigration system. Our bill shuts the door on this scam once and for all."
This Industry Has Been Running Wide Open for Decades
In 2015, federal agents raided roughly three dozen sites in California connected to birth tourism operations – and prosecutors called it the first-ever criminal prosecution of birth tourism operators.
One of those businesses, "You Win USA," charged Chinese nationals up to $80,000 per birth.
Its owner, Dongyuan Li, pocketed enough to buy a $2.1 million home outright and park a new Mercedes-Benz in the driveway.
The operators coached clients on how to hide pregnancies from customs officials and book luxury stays in Hawaii to make their trips look like vacations.
After the three California takedowns, ICE special agent Mark Zito told the press that three busts in Los Angeles were just the start – because there were likely 300 more operations exactly like them.
He was right.
Expert testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee this year placed the Chinese birth tourism population at potentially 750,000 to 1.5 million individuals – American citizens on paper, raised inside China's borders, schooled in its system, with every legal right to vote in your elections.
Peter Schweizer testified in March that Chinese data firms alone reported 150,000 Chinese nationals traveling to the U.S. for birth tourism in 2018.
The Center for Immigration Studies calculates that between 200,000 and 300,000 children were born to birth tourists over the last decade – and that number is now considered a floor, not a ceiling.
Trump Moved First – Now Congress Has to Finish It
In June, the Supreme Court rejected Trump's birthright citizenship executive order 5-4.
Trump responded on Truth Social by sarcastically congratulating China on its "massive Birthright Citizenship WIN" – then told Congress he would give them his "complete and total support" to go around the ruling.
The DOJ moved the same day – directing every U.S. attorney's office in the country to prioritize birth tourism prosecutions.
In August, the State Department created a task force to revoke visas of anyone who facilitates birth tourism.
Chairman James Comer and the House Oversight Committee sent letters to four U.S. businesses openly marketing maternity services to foreign nationals – flagging Chinese and Russian birth tourism operations as national security threats.
Mace's bill is what makes all of it stick for good.
Every prior prosecution had to rely on visa fraud and money laundering charges – complicated cases requiring prosecutors to prove deceptive intent at the moment a pregnant woman crossed the border.
https://twitter.com/RepNancyMace/status/2100638480942374973?s=20
These operators specifically trained their clients to avoid giving that evidence – which is why Dongyuan Li built a $2.1 million empire and ran her business for years before anyone touched her.
Mace's bill creates a dedicated federal crime for the first time.
You don't have to catch them lying at customs.
You charge the network.
Prosecutors documented that customers of the California operations included Chinese government officials affiliated with state-owned radio stations and Beijing's Public Security Bureau.
These weren't tourists gaming a loophole.
They were agents of a foreign government buying passports for their children – and Congress is finally calling it what it is.
Sources:
- Olivia Rondeau, "Exclusive — Birth Tourism Crackdown Introduced by Nancy Mace," Breitbart News, September 17, 2026.
- "Comer and Gill Investigate Businesses Exploiting U.S. Immigration Law to Profit from Birth Tourism," House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, May 14, 2026.
- Peter Schweizer, Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, March 10, 2026.
- Marsha Blackburn, "Birth Tourism Undermines U.S. Citizenship. Here's How Republicans Can End It," The Chattanoogan, July 13, 2026.
- Joseph Macias, "19 Charged in Chinese 'Birth Tourism' Crackdown," Fox News, January 31, 2019.