State Department Says It Has Dismantled Birth Tourism Visa Networks

The Department of State on June 10 announced that it dismantled several “illegal birth tourism” networks spanning Europe, West Africa, and North Africa, and warned that it will not allow people to come to the United States for the purpose of giving birth.

In multiple X posts, the department said U.S. embassies found multiple networks that used fraudulent documents, coaching services, and visa fixers to help foreign nationals get into the United States to give birth there.

“No foreigner is permitted to obtain a visitor visa for the primary purpose of acquiring U.S. citizenship for a child by giving birth in the U.S.,” the State Department wrote in one post.

A U.S. embassy found what the department said is a “sophisticated birth tourism network of more than 100 foreign nationals using fraudulent documents and visa ‘fixers'” in a West African country with the purpose of getting “themselves visas in order to get U.S. citizenship for their children,” the department said.

“We shut it down, revoked these foreign nationals’ visas, and are coordinating with local authorities to systematically identify and cut off any similar operations,” the State Department said in a follow-up post.

In North Africa, another U.S. embassy in an undisclosed country, it added, revoked more than 100 visas that were being used by people who sought to enter the United States to give birth to allow their children to gain American citizenship.

Consular officers and local law enforcement officials then moved to put a stop to the alleged scheme, the department said.

“In Europe, a U.S. embassy identified more than 400 suspected birth tourism cases since 2024,” the agency wrote, linking the cases to several companies that arranged U.S. housing and coached applicants on what to say in a visa interview. That scheme was also shut down, it said.

The department added that U.S. visas are not a right but a privilege and will take further action to prevent “this abuse, dismantle birth tourism networks, and hold accountable those who try to scam our system.”

Birthright citizenship has been at the heart of a national debate about immigration in the United States. In early 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that sought to end automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants and people with temporary visas, which has been blocked by multiple lower courts.

The Supreme Court is due to issue a ruling on the matter in the coming weeks before its current term ends in late June or early July.

In the executive order, Trump argued that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which was ratified a few years after the end of the Civil War, “has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States” and was mainly meant for slaves who were freed.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has also tightened rules around the issuance of H-1B visas, although a judge this week blocked a $100,000 fee that was established by the administration for the foreign specialty worker permits.