Making a big statement about the Donald Trump administration’s newly formed task force seeking to eliminate “Birth Tourism” in the United States, the US Department of State announced it had revoked nearly 900 visas as part of the crackdown efforts since its formation.
The ‘Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force’ launched on August 12 (US time). Right off the bat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that authorities behind the new task force had already revoked more than 600 visas from foreign nationals worldwide. Merely days later, the State Department updated its announcement, reporting an additional 150 visa revocations linked to “Birth Tourism” cases, a practice President Trump has strongly argued against and wants to eliminate since the start of his second term.
The major development comes just weeks after the Republican leader signed two executive orders to ensure what he called the protection of the “meaning and value of American citizenship.” Trump resorted to these new presidential actions after a late June ruling resulted in the US Supreme Court striking down one of his previous executive orders aimed at ending birthright citizenship.
Birthright citizenship is currently granted in the United States under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. However, the MAGA leader views it as a major loophole giving way to foreign nationals coming to the US for the sole purpose of giving birth so that their child could instantly gain a US citizen’s legal status. As part of his larger immigration crackdown, the Trump administration deems the so-called Birth Tourism route as yet another instance of “visa abuse” or “visa fraud.”
900 visas revoked by ‘Ending Birth Tourism’ task force
In line with what Marco Rubio stated at the time of the task force’s launch announcement, State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told Newsmax that elaborate birth tourism rings are profiting by essentially trying to sell US citizenship to foreign nationals. He reiterated that such collectives didn’t just stop at making hefty promises of an automatic claim to citizenship; they also went as far as “coaching” individuals on how to defraud the US visa system by arranging means for their travel, housing and healthcare.
The official social media handle of the US Department of State has since posted Pigott’s media interaction on X as well.
Elsewhere, the department’s deputy spokesperson, Luke Ortega, told local US news outlet KFox14 that the State Department is constantly reviewing visas held by individuals to keep a check on visa applications and emerging patterns that may determine that a tourist visa holder is travelling to the US only to give birth to a child for the sake of US citizenship.
Without offering details on how many non-citizens have travelled to the US to give birth in the last five years, he said, “The clear answer is that there’s too many and we’re taking action rapidly to meet this challenge.” Echoing Rubio’s repeated statement about how a US visa is a privilege and not a right, Ortega added, “When we revoke a visa, it’s a clear signal that someone is no longer welcome in the United States.”
He also told KFox14 that the government department has discovered two case classifications. One of them involves individuals who apply for a US visa, mentioning tourism as their purpose of travel, but plan on giving birth in America. Secondly, there are organised networks “exploiting” the US immigration system and “trying to commodify what should be a sacred privilege, which is American citizenship.”
In its official release detailing the objectives of the Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force, the US State Department revealed earlier this month that one such instance involved a foreign government official requesting a visa to travel on behalf of her national government for a week. As per the findings of the Trump administration, the unnamed official then stayed back for three months and gave birth in America before her departure.
Just as the deputy spokesperson for the department refrained from revealing actual figures tied to the so-called “Birth Tourism,” the US government doesn’t disclose official data about the number of women coming to the US on tourist visas to give birth.
According to the Centres for Disease Control’s (CDC) most recent estimates, however, over 9,500 babies were born to foreign women in the US in 2024. These figures account for mothers with foreign addresses.
CDC also estimated that a total of 3.7 million US births were recorded that year.
A report released by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) this year found that the most expansive census-based estimate puts birth tourism at 22,000 to 26,000 babies born a year on US soil.
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