Chino Hills 'maternity hotels' reanimate birthright citizenship debates

The discovery of at least two alleged "maternity hotels" in Chino Hills is motivating the area's assemblyman to craft a bill creating new penalties for those who he believes are exploiting a loophole in immigration laws.

The state Legislature does not have power over immigration, but Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills, wants to find a way within the state's powers to attack the issue.

Hagman wants to create new punishments for anyone who breaks state or local law while running maternity hotels, which are semi-underground facilities for women who travel to the United States specifically to obtain American citizenship for their newborns.

"There are certain provisions under California law that for certain criminal acts - primarily for larger drug operations use - that allow law enforcement to seize real property," Hagman said.

"I don't know if we can do this ... and I don't like government taking property, but that's the extreme measure."

The concept of "maternity tourism" refers to the idea of pregnant women traveling to the United States to give birth and allow their children to obtain American citizenship before returning to their homelands.

Although those who hold conservative views on immigration oppose maternity tourism, the practice is not illegal in and of itself.

In other places where local governments have confronted maternity tourism, such as San Gabriel and Arcadia, officials have used zoning and code enforcement laws to push the practice away from residential areas.

That's the same path Chino Hills officials are likely to take as City Hall considers filing a criminal complaint against the owner of a home accused of illegally running a house as a hotel and making apparently unpermitted changes to the building.

The concept of "birth tourism" could be considered as part of the broader argument over birthright citizenship - whether it makes sense for the government to grant citizenship to children born inside the United States even if their parents are citizens of other countries.

Birthright citizenship is the kind of issue that often animates immigration conservatives who see the current policy as a gaping loophole in immigration laws.

On the other hand, immigrant rights advocates view birthright citizenship as a vital part of U.S. law, and a benefit that is most often used by immigrants who want to spend their lives in the United States.

"Many of the communities who benefit from this, they have no intention of going anywhere else," said Karin Wang, vice president of programs and communications for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

There are no exact figures on how many mothers travel to the United States specifically to obtain citizenship for their newborn children.

The number of children born to non-resident mothers in 2010 - 7,719 - is only a small proportion of the nearly 4 million births that occurred in this country that year.

From another perspective, however, the number of births to non-residents increased at a rapid pace - 54 percent - from 2000 to 2010.

Rep. Gary Miller, R-Brea, says birth tourism is a growing overseas industry in countries such as China, South Korea and Saudi Arabia where companies who facilitate mothers' trips to the United States exploit American immigration law.

"It's a loophole and it's a problem," Miller said.

The roots of modern birthright citizenship policies extend all the way back to the 1868 ratification of the 14th Amendment, which declared "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Hesperia, is a former Minuteman Project leader who has made his support for tight immigration policies a key plank in his platform. He said he considers maternity tourism to be "deeply unsettling" and considers birthright citizenship to be a serious enough problem to warrant the repeal of the 14th Amendment.

"There is one reform that is long overdue. The 14th Amendment was intended to protect slaves and the children of slaves from being disenfranchised after the Civil War," he said. "This policy (birthright citizenship) has become a disaster. It effectively takes all control from immigration from the host nation."

Miller and other opponents of birthright citizenship in Congress have not gone as far as to call for what would be only the second repeal of a Constitutional amendment in American history.

They have, however, proposed bills that would end birthright citizenship as it is currently practiced. Miller has repeatedly offered the LEAVE Bill as an anti-illegal immigration proposal that would also change birthright citizenship laws.

The bill's provisions have included the requirement that for any child born on United States soil to receive citizenship, the child must have at least one parent who is a citizen, a legal resident alien or a noncitizen who is serving in the military.

Other conservative representatives such as Steve King of Iowa and the now-retired Tom Tancredo of Colorado have also proposed restrictions on birthright citizenship, but none have made much progress through Congress.

The United States and Canada have laws providing for birthright citizenship, but other countries have ceased to do so. Since the 1980s, Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand and the Dominican Republic are among the countries that have cancelled birthright citizenship.

For those who would like to see the United States end birthright citizenship, doing so is viewed as a way to discourage illegal immigration.

On the other hand, others say the United States needs to welcome immigrants in order to have a large enough population to maintain social programs.

"It's actually an asset for our country to have a more open citizenship policy, because if you compare the U.S. and Canada, that has more restrictive citizenship rules, we have a more robust population group, which is necessary to maintain our Social Security system and Medicare system," UC Riverside political scientist Karthick Ramakrishnan said.

It's open to question whether Congress has enough power to limit birthright citizenship without amending the Constitution. The Supreme Court affirmed the 14th Amendment's granting of birthright citizenship in the 1897 case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

The court then ruled that Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese nationals, was a citizen by right of birth.

Nonetheless, some immigration conservatives contend the amendment's language is not strong enough to confer citizenship to children who are born to tourists visiting the United States.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman for Federation for American Immigration Reform, said that even though a tourist would have to obey American law while visiting the country, she would not necessarily be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.

An American citizen visiting another country would not lose the rights or duties of citizenship while visiting another country, he said.

"This is certainly not what the framers of the 14th Amendment had in mind," Mehlman said. "Citizenship is not the accident of where you happened to breathe your first breath. Citizenship means a connection to this country."

By contrast, Wang said it is birthright citizenship itself that has allowed the children of immigrants, especially those from Asia, to connect with American society.

"The community was able to grow and flourish," she said.

Congress is widely expected to address wide-ranging immigration proposals next year, but lawmakers are more likely to take on proposals that will make it easier for immigrants, including those in the United States illegally, to become citizens.

Reach Andrew via email, call him at 909-483-8550, or find him on Twitter @InlandBizz.
