SAN GABRIEL, Calif. — For months, neighbors noticed a number of pregnant Asian women coming and going at all hours at an upscale townhouse development in suburban Los Angeles.
They finally found out the home was being used as a maternity center for Chinese women paying thousands of dollars to give birth in the United States so their children would automatically gain citizenship, city officials said.
The discovery of the center where women stayed before and after delivering their babies at local hospitals was unusual and a possible sign that birthright citizenship is being exploited as a lucrative business, an immigration activist said.
“What this could suggest is . . . they’re taking it to the next step,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates stricter limits on immigration. “Whoever is organizing this type of operation is buying or leasing a home to become a clearing house. That’s a serious problem.”
But it’s not illegal.
Women from other countries have long traveled to the U.S. legally on tourist or student visas and given birth because U.S. law automatically entitles children born on U.S. soil to citizenship.
While some stay under the false assumption that they too can gain citizenship if their child is U.S.-born, many return to their home countries convinced a U.S. birth certificate will afford their child more opportunities in the future.
Often, the women are wealthy and able to pay the steep costs of the trip and medical care.
Officials in the suburb that’s home to a large Asian population shut down the house for building-code violations earlier this month after receiving a complaint about excessive noise, overcrowding and possible building-permit violations, said Clayton A. Anderson, the city’s neighborhood improvement services manager.
Inspectors found seven newborns being kept in clear plastic bassinets in a kitchen converted to a nursery.
After being interviewed by county child welfare workers, the women and babies were taken to another location because the townhomes were deemed unsafe for occupancy. Structural walls had been breached.
The three homes, part of a five-unit condo development on a quiet residential street, had adjoining inside walls removed, and rooms were divided so mothers had separate spaces, Anderson said.
