Under Mace’s proposal, people who recruit, transport or otherwise facilitate birth tourism could face a specific federal criminal penalty.
Foreign nationals seeking admission to the United States for the purpose of obtaining citizenship for a child would also be deemed inadmissible.
The bill would further authorize denaturalization proceedings involving people convicted of fraud connected to birth tourism.
“American citizenship isn’t a travel souvenir or a commodity for sale. It’s one of the greatest privileges on Earth,” said Congresswoman Mace. “Birth tourism is an abuse of our immigration system. It rewards people for exploiting our laws while millions of Americans are left paying the price. Our bill shuts the door on this scam once and for all.”
Mace Wants a Nationwide Federal Crackdown
The legislation doesn’t stop with tougher prison sentences.
It would establish an American Citizenship Integrity Interagency Task Force jointly led by the attorney general and secretary of Homeland Security.
That task force would be charged with investigating and dismantling birth tourism networks while coordinating with law enforcement agencies overseas.
Mace also wants a dedicated federal prosecutor assigned in every federal judicial district to oversee birth tourism and citizenship fraud cases.
“America is not the world’s maternity ward. If you’re exploiting our laws to manufacture U.S. citizenship, the free ride is over. This legislation puts criminal birth tourism networks on notice and gives law enforcement the tools to shut them down,” Mace added.
The proposal comes after years of federal investigations showing that birth tourism was far more sophisticated than pregnant women simply boarding airplanes for the United States.
Some businesses built organized operations around the practice.
California Case Exposed a Multimillion-Dollar Business
One of the clearest examples emerged from Southern California.
Federal agents executed 35 search warrants in March 2015 as part of an investigation into businesses catering primarily to Chinese clients.
By 2019, prosecutors had charged 19 people in what the Justice Department described as the first federal criminal cases brought against operators and customers of birth tourism businesses.
Among the defendants was Dongyuan Li, who operated You Win USA Vacation Services Corp.
Federal prosecutors said the company advertised that it had assisted more than 500 Chinese customers seeking to give birth in America.
Li’s business allegedly used 20 apartments in Irvine and charged clients between $40,000 and $80,000. Authorities said approximately $3 million was wired from China into the operation over two years.
The scheme went well beyond arranging hotel rooms.
According to the Justice Department, clients were coached on how to misrepresent the length and purpose of their trips during visa interviews.
They were also advised to wear loose clothing to conceal pregnancies and, in some cases, enter the country through locations such as Hawaii before continuing to Southern California because operators believed customs scrutiny would be easier there.
Li ultimately pleaded guilty in 2019 to conspiracy to commit immigration fraud and visa fraud. She was later sentenced to 10 months in federal prison.
The industry did not disappear with that case.
In September 2024, a federal jury convicted Michael Wei Yueh Liu and Jing Dong for operating another Southern California birth tourism operation catering to Chinese clients. Prosecutors said the pair helped customers obtain visas, find housing and transportation, navigate customs and secure American legal documents for their children.
Questions About China Have Reached Capitol Hill
Birth tourism has also become part of a broader congressional debate about citizenship and national security.
At a March 2026 Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing, Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer testified that the federal government does not systematically track the number of children born through birth tourism.
Schweizer cited estimates ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 Chinese birth tourists annually and said Chinese data companies reported approximately 150,000 arrivals for that purpose in 2018.
He estimated that between 750,000 and 1.5 million Chinese nationals could now possess American citizenship after being born in the United States and subsequently raised in China. Those figures were presented as estimates in Schweizer’s testimony rather than official federal counts.
Democrats challenged Schweizer’s broader national-security framing during the hearing. Sen. Dick Durbin and other critics have disputed arguments portraying birthright citizenship as a tool being systematically weaponized by China.
Supreme Court Ruling Changed the Battlefield
Mace’s latest legislation arrives less than three months after President Donald Trump suffered a major defeat at the Supreme Court over his attempt to restrict birthright citizenship.
In Trump v. Barbara, the Court ruled 6–3 on June 30 against Trump’s 2025 executive order, which sought to deny automatic citizenship to certain children born in the United States when their parents were unlawfully or temporarily present.
The ruling did not make birth-tourism-related fraud legal. Instead, it addressed who qualifies for citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment and federal law.
That distinction is important.
Mace’s new proposal attacks the organizations facilitating birth tourism rather than relying solely on changing the constitutional rule governing citizenship at birth.
The legislation therefore attempts to give federal prosecutors another route: target the networks arranging the travel, accommodations and immigration-related services when their purpose falls within the bill’s definition of birth tourism.
For Mace, the argument is straightforward: citizenship should not become a commercial product sold through sophisticated international operations.
Whether Congress ultimately adopts her approach remains to be seen.
But the American Citizenship Integrity Act would substantially raise the stakes for anyone operating a birth tourism business.
Instead of prosecutors having to build cases primarily around immigration fraud, false statements or money laundering, Mace wants federal law to directly target the industry itself — with organized operations potentially facing penalties of up to three decades behind bars.
