Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) is pointing to the recent raids of alleged “birth-tourism” locations in Southern California as another reason to end birth-right citizenship.
“We need to stop automatically granting citizenship to babies born in this country,” Vitter said in reaction to the raids. “I have yet to talk to anybody in the real world, which means outside of Washington, D.C., who doesn’t think this is crazy, who doesn’t think birth tourism is nuts and should be illegal.”
Tuesday, federal officials executed search warrants in at several Southern California locations believed to be connected to birth-tourism businesses.
Birth tourism is a lucrative industry whereby, in this case, pregnant Chinese women pay to come to the U.S. to have their child born on American soil, and thus as a U.S. citizens.
As U.S. citizens, the foreign nationals’ children are eligible for all the benefits afforded to Americans, including the ability to sponsor family members to legally immigrate to the U.S.
“I’ve heard no common sense justification for this,” Vitter noted.
The Louisiana lawmaker has been pushing legislation to end birthright citizenship since 2011 with the “Birthright Citizenship Act.”
According to his office Vitter reintroduced the legislation this year. The bill would amend existing law — specifically the Immigration and Nationality Act — to prevent children born in the U.S. to foreign parents from being automatically citizens.
The exclusion would not apply to such an infant is one of the parents is a U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, or an immigrants actively serving in the U.S. military.