The Trump administration has published new visa rules that aims to put an end to birth tourism, in which any non- resident woman travelling to the US to give birth in order to secure the citizenship of the country will not be possible anymore.
The new rules in the Federal Register says that the tourist visas will be denied to the applicants if they are determined by the consular officers that they are travelling to the US primarily to give birth.
The constitution of the United States considers anyone born in the US as the citizens of the United States and this is framed as the birthright citizenship.
The Trump government is planning to end the birthright citizenship and the call for banning the tourism has already been taken. This leads to the understanding that pregnant women will not be allowed to visit the United States even as a tourist which turns out to be extremely difficult for a pregnant non-resident woman in securing a visa.
The decision of banning the birth tourism has been initiated after taking into consideration the facts that most tourists who intend to give birth in the United States hail from Russia, China and Nigeria as the benefit of the 14th Amendment’s protection of citizenship for a person born in the USA.
The impact of the new rule will be shown mainly on the B1 and B2 non-immigrant visas which are the temporary visas which are granted for business, medical treatment or for the tourism purpose.
The consular officers have no right in asking whether a woman is pregnant or if she intends to become so, in the visa interview but they would still have to determine if a woman is travelling to the United States primarily to give birth or no.
According to the news report, if a consulate officer suspects a B non- immigrant female visa applicant that she is seeking the visa for acquiring the US birthright citizenship for the child, the proofs and valid reasons should be furnished by the visa applicant in order to prove to the consulate officer that she has a valid reason for acquiring the visa and not primarily for the birthright citizenship.
According to the rules of the State Department, an entire industry of birth tourism has evolved for providing assistance to the pregnant woman from other countries to come to the United States in order to obtain US citizenship for their children by giving birth in the USA.
Although there are no valid figures on the foreign women traveling to the United States primarily to give birth in order to acquire the US Citizenship, it has been estimated that about 36,000 women from the foreign countries have come to the United States for giving birth and then left the country after the child was born, by the Center for Immigration Studies which is a group that advocates for the stricter immigration laws.
According to the department rules, the new visa rules that are being initiated will help in eliminating the criminal activity that is being associated with the birth tourism industry.
