Trump Orders Crackdown on ‘Birth Tourism,’ Opening Door to Visa Revocations and Entry Bans

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has ordered the State and Homeland Security departments to intensify enforcement against “birth tourism,” giving the agencies authority to deny or revoke visas, refuse entry, remove foreign nationals and potentially permanently bar people found to have traveled to the United States to give birth.

The executive order, titled “Ending Birth Tourism,” was signed on August 6 and represents a significant expansion of the administration’s efforts to prevent foreign nationals from using temporary U.S. visas for the purpose of giving birth on American soil.

Unlike Trump’s broader fight over birthright citizenship, the birth-tourism order primarily operates through the immigration and visa system. It delegates presidential authority under Section 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to the secretary of state and secretary of homeland security and directs them to change rules, policies and operational guidance as necessary.

The order defines birth tourism as a foreign national entering the United States on a nonimmigrant visa for the purpose of giving birth on U.S. soil, or another foreign national facilitating such an entry. That language is noteworthy because it is not limited specifically to B-1/B-2 visitor visas. The order itself points to temporary visa categories used for tourism, study, exchange programs and employment.

The secretaries are authorized, within their legal authority and discretion, to prevent such travelers from entering the country or obtaining visas or other travel authorization. The order also contemplates revoking visas, denying entry, removing people who previously participated in or plan to participate in birth tourism, and permanently barring entry in some cases. It further directs the government to consider action against businesses, organizations or individuals that facilitate birth-tourism arrangements.

Humanitarian and national-interest exemptions may be granted by the State or Homeland Security secretary.

Birth tourism was already restricted on visitor visas

Travel to the United States primarily to give birth and obtain U.S. citizenship for the child was already restricted before Trump’s new order.

In January 2020, the State Department amended its B-visa regulations to establish that birth tourism is not a permissible basis for receiving a temporary visitor visa. Consular officers are directed to deny a B-visa applicant when they have reason to believe the applicant’s primary purpose is giving birth in the United States to obtain citizenship for the child.

Current State Department guidance does not establish pregnancy itself as an automatic ground for visa refusal. When an officer has reason to believe an applicant will give birth during the U.S. visit, the officer evaluates the purpose of travel; guidance also says officers should not ask whether a woman is pregnant without a specific, articulable reason to believe she may be pregnant and planning to give birth in the United States.

The new executive order could potentially extend the government’s approach beyond the existing B-visa framework because its definition refers broadly to entry on a nonimmigrant visa for the purpose of giving birth. Exactly how State Department consular officers and Customs and Border Protection officers will apply that broader language will depend in part on implementing rules and guidance. As of August 9, the State Department’s public visa-news page did not list separate implementation guidance for the August 6 order.

Indian travelers had already been warned

The issue has direct relevance for travelers from India.

On December 11, 2025, the U.S. Embassy in India publicly reiterated that consular officers would refuse tourist visa applications when they believed the principal reason for the trip was to give birth in the United States in order to obtain U.S. citizenship for the child.

Trump’s new order goes further by directing both State and DHS to use their authorities against people entering or attempting to enter for birth tourism and against those who help facilitate such travel.

For Indian families, including Telugu families traveling between India and the United States, an important distinction remains: the executive order does not say that pregnancy by itself constitutes birth tourism. Its definition turns on the purpose for which the foreign national enters the United States. A woman traveling for legitimate tourism, employment, study or another authorized purpose is therefore not automatically a “birth tourist” merely because she is pregnant or later gives birth. How officers determine a traveler’s purpose under the new order, however, will be important once implementation guidance is issued.

No reliable official figure for how many birth tourists enter US

Claims about the scale of birth tourism require caution.

A 2022 report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs said the State Department did not comprehensively track birth tourism and could not separate birth-tourism cases from the broader medical-travel category in its consular database. The State Department estimated that “thousands” of children were born annually to B-visa visitors, based partly on observations from U.S. embassies and consulates.

A frequently repeated figure of 33,000 births a year is not an official U.S. government count. It originates from an estimate by the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates lower immigration levels. Given the State Department’s acknowledgment that it lacked comprehensive tracking data, the 33,000 figure should not be presented simply as an established annual total.

Federal investigations have nevertheless documented organized businesses selling birth-tourism services. In one California prosecution, the Justice Department said an operator serving Chinese clients charged customers between $40,000 and $80,000 and used 20 apartments to accommodate clients. Federal prosecutors said the business had advertised serving more than 500 customers.

The 2022 Senate investigation separately examined California-based Ada International, which primarily catered to Chinese clients, and Miami Mama in Florida, which mainly served Russian customers. The committee found that Miami Mama had offered packages ranging from $6,900 to $49,000 before discontinuing its birth-tourism operations.

Second Trump order goes further on citizenship itself

Trump signed another executive order the same day, “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” That measure deals directly with who the federal government will recognize as a citizen at birth and is separate from the visa-and-entry crackdown in the “Ending Birth Tourism” order.

Among other categories, the citizenship order instructs federal agencies not to recognize citizenship when neither parent is a U.S. citizen and a parent used a commercial transaction to arrange for the mother to be in the United States to give birth. It also includes commercial surrogacy arrangements in its language. Agencies are directed to issue implementation guidance within 30 days.

That provision is likely to face substantial legal scrutiny.

On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. Barbara that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court described the constitutional rule as having broad coverage and narrow historical exceptions.

The ruling struck at the foundation of Trump’s January 2025 effort to deny citizenship broadly to children of undocumented immigrants and people temporarily in the country. The new August orders attempt a narrower approach, but Reuters, AP and other legal reporting indicate that further litigation is expected over whether the administration has gone beyond the exceptions recognized by the Supreme Court.

The distinction between the two August 6 orders is important: “Ending Birth Tourism” targets the ability of foreign nationals to obtain visas or enter the United States for childbirth, while “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” attempts in specified circumstances to affect whether a child born in the United States is recognized as a citizen.

For Indian and Telugu families, the immediate practical issue is therefore broader scrutiny of the purpose of travel, rather than a blanket prohibition on pregnant women entering the United States. Further State Department and DHS guidance will determine how aggressively and how broadly the new birth-tourism order is implemented.