The indictments include an array of charges, including visa fraud, wire fraud and identity theft, against owners of the birth-tourism agencies that are accused of enabling thousands of Chinese women to come explicitly to give birth to American children. The Center for Immigration Studies, a group that supports restricting immigration, puts the number at about 36,000 annually in a 2015 report. “The fact that we have no idea of the scale of birth tourism is a problem in and of itself,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the center in Washington. President Trump last year claimed erroneously that the United States is the “only country in the world” that automatically confers citizenship to anyone born in the country. In fact, it is one of at least 30 countries that do so.

Source: New York Times January 31, 2019 20:15 UTC