Maternity Tourists vs. Anchor Babies
New York Times
In March, 2011, authorities raided and closed down several townhouses in San Gabriel, California, for code violations. It was later discovered that the townhouses were operating as maternity centers for Chinese and Taiwanese mothers who paid thousands of dollars in order to give birth to children in the United States so that the children would gain automatic US citizenship. The townhouses which were crammed with babies were operating as makeshift maternity clinics. It’s been reported that the mothers, called ‘maternity tourists,’ pay as much as $35,000 to stay and have babies born in America.