Posted at 8:01 am on February 1, 2019
A series of federal arrests in California last month has brought the issue of what’s known as birth tourism back into the news. In this case, nearly two dozen people were charged for arranging visas and transportation for pregnant women, primarily from China, who came to California for the purpose of giving birth and obtaining a US birth certificate for their babies. They then returned home to China. While technically legal, this seems to fly in the face of what our laws intend. (Daily Mail)
The largest-ever crackdown on ‘birth tourism’ businesses that help Chinese women travel to the United States to deliver ‘anchor babies’ has resulted in twenty arrests.
Three people – Dongyuan Li, 41, Michael Wei Yueh Liu, 53, and Jing Dong, 42, were arrested in Southern California on charges including conspiracy, visa fraud and money laundering.
More than a dozen others, among them Li’s business partner Chao Chen, have also been charged in cases stemming from three so-called birth tourism businesses.
Many of the suspects believed to be currently living in China, and the crackdown marks the first time the United States has criminally prosecuted birth tourism operators, said the U.S. attorney’s office.
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