Justice Department directs probes of birth tourism after Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship

The Justice Department directed federal prosecutors to investigate potential birth tourism schemes following the Supreme Court’s decision overturning President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general for fraud enforcement, issued a memo stating that individuals entering the United States under false pretenses to give birth could face charges including visa fraud, money laundering, identity theft and wire fraud.

Criminal laws already cover conduct common to such schemes, noting that many begin with false visa applications that misrepresent the purpose or length of travel. The memo cited three prior convictions as examples of how operators have been prosecuted under existing statutes.

In 2024 Michael Wei Yueh Liu and Jing Dong each received 41-month prison sentences for running USA Happy Baby, a service that charged Chinese clients tens of thousands of dollars to arrange births in the United States.

Ibrahim Aksakal was sentenced in 2022 to 27 months for health-care and wire fraud after advertising a birth tourism operation on Turkish-language social media; he was ordered to pay $1 million in restitution and forfeit nearly $400,000. Chao Edwin Chen received a 37-month sentence in 2020 for operating You Win USA, which served more than 500 customers at fees between $40,000 and $80,000 each.

Trump signed the executive order on the first day of his second term.

He later attended Supreme Court arguments in the case, the first sitting president to do so. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately that the 14th Amendment permits legislative limits on birthright citizenship, while Chief Justice John Roberts authored the 5-4 majority opinion holding that the amendment grants citizenship to all persons born in the country.