Author and investigative reporter Peter Schweizer pushed back on a report published by The Hill that claimed the numbers of foreign “birth tourists” to the US is small. Schweizer responded with facts.
“No. According to the Chinese government itself, they believe that every year, on average since 2013, roughly 100,000 Chinese babies have been born in the United States. That is a government estimate from China,” Schweizer told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Wednesday night.
“Research firms sometimes put that number even higher,” he added. “The problem is that our federal government doesn’t even know. We don’t track this. We don’t put the nationality of the parents on a birth certificate,” he pointed out.
“Since 2013, Laura, we’re looking at potentially more than 1 million ‘US citizens’ that are being raised in China. They are citizens only because their mothers came here to give birth,” Schweizer said.
These children, he said, are raised fully in China but “when they turn 18, they’re US citizens, and they can vote in US elections. They can get government jobs.” They can also (at age 21) sponsor their parents and siblings to obtain permanent resident status in the US.
“So. it’s a massive problem, but there are things the Trump administration can do to fix this or, at least, deal with it,” he told Ingraham.
The segment ended there, but on his own podcast, Schweizer offered a few suggestions for things the administration could and should do in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision:
- Legislation that revokes a previous law granting birthright citizenship to persons born in US territories. Congress specifically passed a law to do this, so it can be undone or modified without a constitutional amendment.
- Shut down birth tourism companies operating in the US, prosecuting them for visa fraud and stiffening the penalties for a conviction.
- Revoke the agreement made by President Obama in 2014 creating a unique 10-year visa for Chinese visitors to the US, which Schweizer believes has been abused by Chinese women to come into the US to give birth without having to apply for a new visa later when they become pregnant.
