US federal agents crack down on maternity hotels for aliens

LOS ANGELES: Federal agents raided about 20 Southern California locations on Tuesday suspected of involvement in “maternity tourism” schemes providing travel, lodging and medical care to pregnant foreign women seeking to give birth in the US, immigration officials said.

They say the so-called maternity hotels catered mainly to wealthy women from China who paid $15 000 (R180 000) to $80 000, depending on the services offered, in the hopes of obtaining US citizenship for their children.

Three blocks of flats – one each in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties – were searched, according to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).

No criminal arrests were anticipated, said Claude Arnold, special agent in charge of the Homeland Security Investigations office in Los Angeles.

The US constitution grants citizenship to any child born in the US. Immigration experts say nothing is illegal about women coming from abroad to give birth in the US.

But operators of the maternity hotels are suspected of obtaining non-immigrant US visitor visas under false pretences, as well as engaging in tax fraud, money laundering and other offences, Arnold said.

Any women encountered in the raids were to be interviewed. Those identified as potential witnesses instructed where and when to report for further questioning, ICE said.

Businesses engaged in maternity tourism, also known as “birth tourism”, are believed to have been operating for years, relying on websites, newspaper advertising and social media to promote their services.

Clients were promised they would receive Social Security numbers and US passports for their infants, documentation the mothers would take with them when they returned to their home countries. Once the children reach adulthood, they could seek US visas for relatives living abroad.

Clients apparently pay cash for prenatal medical treatment and delivery of their babies. Some have fraudulently benefited from discounted hospital rates usually reserved for indigent or uninsured patients, say court documents. – Reuters