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Xinyi Wu

Li, a woman in her late twenties from southwestern China, is anxious about her coming interview for a 10-year US visa.
She has big plans for her travels – a weeks-long stay next year that would be her first visit to the country – followed by a planned return trip in two years while pregnant so her child can attain American citizenship.
But those plans have been thrown into doubt. Last week, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking to end “birth tourism”, tightening scrutiny on foreign nationals entering the US for the purpose of giving birth.
“I was speechless when I saw the news,” said Li, who preferred not to disclose her full name due to privacy reasons. “Trump is too unpredictable.”
With reports emerging on Chinese social media of pregnant women being turned away at US border checkpoints in the past week, prospective parents face growing uncertainty over whether their plans to secure broader international education options for their children remain viable.
A landlord based in Los Angeles – a popular entry port for expectant parents – said that four incoming tenants, who were Chinese and pregnant, were denied entry into the US over the past week.
Immigration officials turned them away because they had applied for and received their tourist visas while already pregnant, she said.
“Border controls have been very strict recently,” said Sisi, the landlord, who gave only her first name to protect her privacy. The new order also targets those helping foreign nationals entering the US to give birth, but she added that her primary tenants were international students.
The US Department of State announced on Wednesday that its newly established Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force had already revoked more than 600 visas from foreign nationals globally.

While giving birth when visiting the US is not in itself a crime, US regulations ban obtaining visitor visas for the primary purpose of childbirth. This is why many, like Li, apply for their visas and make plans years in advance.
Even then, it does not always work out. A woman from Jiangsu province, who declined to be named, said her tourist visa renewal was rejected shortly before the executive order was issued. She had previously travelled to the US to give birth to her first child in 2024, and intended to do so again for her second.
“I have a solid travel history and sound financial standing,” she said, noting that she had visited the US multiple times and built up a record of substantial consumer spending during her trips.
Dismissing arguments that birth tourists exploited public welfare, she said that Chinese families travelling to the US for childbirth were generally affluent. She estimated flights, medical care, accommodations and living expenses would cost at least 300,000 yuan (US$44,480) for a single trip.
For those families who can afford it, that is seen as a small price to pay as an investment in their children’s future, amid China’s economic slowdown, weakening job market and high-pressure education system.
“I want my child to be able to ‘lie flat’,” said Li, the woman waiting on her visa interview, referring to the phenomenon where many young Chinese choose to drop out of the rat race.
American citizenship would give her future child the option to study in international schools and abroad more easily instead of competing in China’s stressful gaokao university entrance examination, she said, adding she had budgeted 800,000 yuan for her US travels.
The mother from Jiangsu similarly noted that she wanted to give her children “more options should the need arise”, adding that she found pain management during labour to be better in US hospitals.
There are no official figures for birth tourism, but the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention registered only around 9,500 births to foreign residents in 2024 – just 0.26 per cent of the total in the country that year.
Affluent families may turn to alternatives, like commercial surrogacy arrangements, which Trump’s latest orders attempt to restrict
Liang Yan, Willamette University
Liang Yan, a professor of economics at Willamette University in the US, noted that Chinese families were likely to continue seeking American citizenship for their children despite tighter restrictions.
“Traditional birth tourism destinations like Southern California are heavily monitored,” she said. “Affluent families may turn to alternatives, like commercial surrogacy arrangements, which Trump’s latest orders attempt to restrict.”
In a separate executive order signed last week, Trump also sought to block automatic citizenship for US-born children when neither parent is a US citizen, and when at least one is a foreign government employee or a member of a foreign terrorist group.
But Liang said denying automatic citizenship to children born in the US would be legally challenging. In June the US Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration’s previous broader effort to end birthright citizenship, a right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution.
Trump’s latest executive orders have already received their first direct challenge, with the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups asking a federal judge to block them, according to court filings earlier this week.
Amid the growing uncertainty, some prospective parents are reconsidering their destinations altogether.
The mother from Jiangsu, who intends to reapply for her visa, is now exploring alternatives including Hong Kong, given the increasingly unpredictable political situation in the US.
“Even if I do secure a visa, there’s a very high likelihood I won’t go to the United States to give birth,” she said.
Additional reporting by Ralph Jennings


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Prospective parents face growing uncertainty over whether their plans to secure broader education options for their children remain viable


Prospective parents face growing uncertainty over whether their plans to secure broader education options for their children remain viable.


How a US crackdown is upending plans for Chinese ‘birth tourists’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Prospective parents face growing uncertainty over whether their plans to secure broader education options for their children remain viable

Prospective parents face growing uncertainty over whether their plans to secure broader education options for their children remain viable