The Trump administration will implement a new policy Friday to make it more difficult for foreign nationals to travel to give birth on United States soil to ensure their children become American citizens, a practice commonly known as “birth tourism.”
The new rules will be effective January 24, according to a State Department cable obtained by CNN, which was sent on Wednesday to embassies around the world.
The White House announced Thursday that the State Department “will no longer issue temporary visitor (B-1/B-2) visas to aliens seeking to enter the United States for ‘birth tourism.'”
Visitors to the US will be denied temporary visas if it’s found that the “primary purpose” of travel is for obtaining US citizenship for a child by giving birth in the United States, according to an amended State Department regulation to be published Friday.
The rule does not apply to the 39 countries, most of which are in Europe, that are part of the Visa Waiver Program, a State Department official confirmed in a briefing call with reporters Thursday.
During that call, the official struggled to explain the specific ways that the new rule would be enforced and its actual effectiveness.
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According to the official on the call and the diplomatic cable, consular officers were told they can’t directly ask a woman if they are pregnant.
“You must not ask a visa applicant whether they are pregnant unless you have a specific articulable reason to believe they may be pregnant and planning to give birth in the United States.
You should document any such reason in your case notes,” reads the cable. “You must not, as a matter of course, ask all female applicants (or any specific sub-sets of applicants) whether they are pregnant or intend to become pregnant.”
The State Department official said that the “specific articulable reason” for bringing the topic up could be if the applicant says they will be traveling for a medical procedure, which is one of the options already on the application.
“That would be the trigger for much of this questioning of applicants,” they said.
The official did not deny that the officers could use visual cues as part of that reasoning and would not directly say, despite repeated questions, if a consular official could ask a woman if she was pregnant if she looked pregnant. They said officers are not allowed to require a pregnancy test.
Although the White House statement said the rule change was “necessary to enhance public safety, national security, and the integrity of our immigration system,” the official could not describe a specific example of a past national security threat that arose as a result of “birth tourism.” Instead, they emphasized that the change was “closing a loophole that creates a vulnerability.”
