A jury has convicted a Southern California couple of running a business that helped pregnant Chinese women travel to the United States without revealing their intentions to give birth to babies who would automatically have American citizenship, as reported by the Associated Press on Sept. 14.
Michael Liu and Phoebe Dong were found guilty of one count of conspiracy and 10 counts of money laundering in a federal court in Los Angeles.
The case against the pair went to trial nine years after federal authorities searched more than a dozen homes across Southern California in a crackdown on so-called birth tourism operators who authorities said encouraged pregnant women to lie on their visa paperwork and hide their pregnancies and helped the women travel to deliver their babies in the United States.
Liu and Dong were charged in 2019 along with more than a dozen others, including a woman who later pleaded guilty to running a company known as “You Win USA” and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.
Prosecutors alleged Liu and Dong’s company “USA Happy Baby” helped several hundred birth tourists between 2012 and 2015 and charged as the tourists much as $40,000 for services including apartment rentals during their stays in Southern California.
Prosecutors said the pair worked with overseas entities that coached women on what to say during visa interviews and to authorities upon arriving in US airports and suggested they wear loose clothing to hide pregnancies and take care not to “waddle like a penguin.”
“Their business model always included deceiving US immigration authorities,” federal prosecutor Kevin Fu told jurors during closing arguments.
Birth tourism businesses have long operated in California and other states and have catered to couples not only from China, but Russia, Nigeria and elsewhere. It isn’t illegal to visit the United States while pregnant, but authorities said lying to consular and immigration officials about the reason for travel on government documents is not permitted.
In response to this phenomenon of birth tourism, the State Department has published a Jan. 24, 2020, rule taking aim at birth tourism. The rule prohibits issuance of a B-2 (visitor for pleasure) visa if the applicant’s primary purpose for traveling to the U.S. is to gain citizenship for a child by giving birth in the U.S. “Birth Tourism” Restricted by New State Department Rule – Chodorow Law Offices (lawandborder.com)
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