At a recent Senate subcommittee hearing, Republican lawmakers argued that automatic citizenship for nearly everyone born on U.S. soil raises not just constitutional or immigration questions but also concerns about fraud and national security. Sen. Eric Schmitt asked whether U.S. citizenship is a national inheritance or “a hollow legal definition without protections against fraud, abuse, and bad actors.”
Their focus is birth tourism—pregnant foreigners traveling to the U.S. to give birth so the child gains American citizenship. Prosecutors have uncovered businesses charging tens of thousands of dollars to arrange travel, lodging and advice on avoiding detection. Willfully misrepresenting travel purposes can be visa fraud, and officials have pursued operators who allegedly coached clients to lie about how long they planned to stay or to conceal pregnancies.
President Trump issued an executive order asserting that children born in the U.S. to parents who are here illegally or temporarily would not be citizens; the Supreme Court is set to hear challenges to that order. If the policy were upheld, it would overturn more than a century of interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which generally has been read to grant citizenship to almost anyone born here except children of foreign diplomats or occupying forces.
Opponents of birthright citizenship point to the birth tourism industry as proof the system can be exploited. The State Department does not track births tied to birth tourism; the CDC, which records births and asks for a home address, estimated about 9,500 births in 2024 listed a non-U.S. address. The Center for Immigration Studies, a group that supports tighter immigration limits, estimated temporary visitors gave birth to about 70,000 babies in 2023. Both figures are small compared with roughly 3.5 million U.S. births a year, meaning tourist births appear to be under 2% of total births.
Those who frame the issue as fraud-related argue citizenship confers privileges—access to public benefits, immigration pathways and social supports—that could be misused. Andrew Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies said taxpayers should not have their generosity abused and expressed concern some parents might view a child’s citizenship as a path to adjust the parents’ status later, even though most family-based immigration avenues require a citizen child to be 21 before sponsoring a parent. A child’s citizenship does not prevent parental deportation before that age, though parenthood can sometimes influence discretionary relief decisions.
Others say the problem is limited and manageable under existing law. Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute argued that occasional fraud doesn’t justify reinterpreting a 150-year-old constitutional amendment and pointed to administrative tools—such as the Trump administration’s 2020 guidance to deny tourist visas to women suspected of seeking birth tourism—as ways to curb abuse. A 2022 Senate report found that the 2020 policy made it harder for birth tourism companies to operate.
Lawmakers also raise national security hypotheticals, suggesting a U.S.-born child raised overseas could be returned and used by a foreign government. Defense analyst Andrew Badger said foreign governments could theoretically exploit citizenship but acknowledged a lack of direct evidence of such cases. David Bier of the Cato Institute reviewed terrorism and espionage prosecutions and found none that followed this pattern, noting many parents travel for legitimate reasons—economic opportunity, fleeing authoritarian regimes or family ties—not to facilitate espionage.
The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands has been singled out as a past hotspot: in 2018 there were 581 tourist births reported, many involving Chinese nationals. Local officials and federal partners tightened controls, and the CNMI says tourist-related births dropped to 47 by 2025. CNMI’s delegate, Kimberlyn King-Hinds, warns that lingering characterizations can hurt the islands’ tourism-dependent economy.
In short, critics point to birth tourism schemes and related visa fraud as reasons birthright citizenship can be abused. Supporters counter that the scale appears limited, existing laws and administrative steps can address abuses, and there is little evidence of systematic national-security exploitation—while cautioning that altering the settled interpretation of the 14th Amendment would be a drastic response to a relatively small problem.