by Ashley Armstead

A Houston-area birth tourism center is the latest target of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The case unfolds amid a continuing Supreme Court dispute over birthright citizenship, sparked by President Trump’s executive order on the issue. 

In Texas, the De’Ai Postpartum Care Center has operated what the state called an “illegal, dangerous and dishonest ‘birth tourism’ business to import Chinese nationals to the United States for the sole purpose of birthing children and obtaining “birthright citizenship.” In a press release from the Attorney General’s office, they describe how the center markets birth services primarily to Chinese clients through popular Chinese social media platforms and websites. The center also coaches clients on how to navigate immigration laws when seeking visas and citizenship for themselves and their now-American child. 

According to the state’s petition, “defendants boast that they have facilitated the birth of 1,000 American-born babies” out of their various Houston-area centers. Put another way, over 1,000 children born on Texas soil were born for the sole purpose of obtaining the rights and benefits of American citizenship. While this may seem like a reductionist take of this birth tourism industry, it forces us to grapple with the idea that these children, made in the image of God, are being used as a means of evading legal pathways to U.S. citizenship. 

The clear abuse of our nation’s birthright citizenship program is a small piece of the growing frustration among everyday Americans who work diligently to provide for their families while others abuse U.S. social programs and immigration laws for personal and financial gain. Birthright citizenship goes a step further and uses children as the tool to execute their objectives, however nefarious they may be. From Vice President JD Vance’s focus on Medicaid fraud in California to ongoing investigations into Minnesota’s daycare and federal child nutrition programs, many American families struggling to make ends meet are growing frustrated by mounting evidence of widespread fraud carried out through loopholes within flawed U.S. social and immigration systems. Texas Representative Brandon Gill, who serves in the House Oversight Committee, has echoed this sentiment loudly after uncovering a $250 million Medicaid fraud scheme in Ohio. Gill recently shifted his sites to the issue of birth tourism, recently announcing a new investigation into centers for birth tourism in Texas and other states. In a recent press release for the committee, they estimated 70,000 births attributed to temporary visitors in 2023 alone. 

The constitutionality of birthright citizenship as it currently stands is ultimately for lawmakers and the courts to determine. Birth tourism on the other hand ought to be an unequivocal no. No to the commodification of birth. No to a pay-to-play industry that uses emotional appeals and marketing tactics to gain American citizenship for their clients. Most importantly, children should not bear the emotional burden or threat of family separation. 

In Texas, we must have even greater conversations about whether we will continue to allow for laws and industries to operate in this state which require children to be used as tools for their parents’ desires. Is this a value that we’re comfortable with as Texans? Can we allow an industry that we know is preying on vulnerable women and/or hired surrogates that are used to secure a family the coveted citizenship for their child? Does this strengthen or undermine the biological family structure? The birth tourism industry is just one of the many ways our lawmakers fail to consider the child’s interests above adult desires. Children should never pay the ultimate price for decisions that do not put their interests first.