Birth Tourism Is a Loophole. It Is Time To Close It.

American citizenship should never be for sale. Right now, it is.

Foreign nationals are paying thousands of dollars to predatory businesses that arrange travel, housing, hospital care, and coaching on how to mislead immigration officers, all to secure American citizenship for their unborn children. The process is straightforward: travel to the United States shortly before giving birth, deliver the child on American soil, and return home. The child is now a citizen.

This is birth tourism. And it is a deliberate exploitation of our laws.

To be American is more than a piece of paper. It is a bond between an individual and a nation built on a promise. It carries constitutional rights, civic responsibilities, and the full protection of the United States government. When foreign nationals pay a business to manufacture that bond for their child, they are not participating in the American story. They are purchasing it.

Some birth tourism operations openly target wealthy clients from adversarial nations, including China and Russia. They help obtain visas, secure housing, coordinate hospital stays, and complete government paperwork. Some go further, coaching clients on how to conceal the true purpose of their trip from immigration officials. This is not a gray area. It is fraud, and it is organized.

Congress has looked the other way for too long.

That is why I introduced the Ban Birth Tourism Act in the House, with Sen. Marsha Blackburn leading companion legislation in the Senate. The bill is targeted. It makes foreign nationals inadmissible when they seek to enter the United States primarily to give birth and obtain citizenship for their child. It makes birth tourism a deportable offense under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Critically, it does not go further than that. The legislation preserves protections for legitimate travelers seeking medical care. It does not affect lawful immigrants building lives in this country. It draws a clear line between people who respect our system and those who exploit it, and that distinction matters.

Georgia’s Seventh Congressional District is home to people from every corner of the world. Many followed our laws, waited their turn, raised families, and earned their place in the American story. I am proud to represent them. Enforcing our immigration laws is not an attack on legal immigrants. It protects the integrity of the system they chose to respect.

We maintain a legal immigration system and a naturalization process because citizenship is serious. It should require more than a plane ticket and a hospital package.

I flew missions along the southern border as a Marine in the early 1990s. I spent years as an emergency-room physician, watching how failures in government policy eventually reach real people and real communities. Both experiences taught me the same thing: ignoring a problem does not make it disappear. It allows the problem to grow.

Every nation must decide who may enter, who may remain, and who belongs to its political community. Without that authority, there is no sovereignty, and without sovereignty, there is no nation.

The Ban Birth Tourism Act does not attempt to resolve every debate surrounding birthright citizenship. It closes a specific, documented loophole that allows foreign nationals and the businesses coaching them to manipulate our laws for profit. It is a focused response to a real problem.

This should not be a partisan issue. Temporary visas must not be obtained through deception. Businesses must not profit by teaching clients how to evade our laws. American citizenship must never become a commodity.

I served in uniform to defend this country. I practiced medicine in rooms where problems could not be ignored. Now I serve in Congress, where the same standard applies.

It is time to close this loophole. Pass the Ban Birth Tourism Act.

Dr. Rich McCormick is an emergency physician, a decorated veteran, and the U.S. representative for Georgia’s 7th Congressional District. He serves on the House Armed Services Committee, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, where he chairs the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

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