New Policy Enacted to Prevent “Birth Tourism”

A new U.S. policy will go into effect as of today that restricts the travel of pregnant foreign women. In a practice commonly referred to as “birth tourism”, foreigners will travel to the U.S. to ensure their children are born american citizens. The Trump administration will now make it increasingly harder for them to do so as, effective today, the state department will deny temporary visas to people seeking to enter the U.S. for this sole or primary purpose. People do question how effective this new ruling will be, however, as consular officers cannot directly ask women if they are pregnant or plan to become, making it difficult to enforce. This new ruling does not apply to the 39, mostly European, countries who are part of the visa waiver program which allows certain countries to “travel to the U.S. for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without a visa.”