President Donald Trump’s State Department released a statement on social media platform X announcing that it is in the process of tearing apart birth tourism networks located across both Africa and Europe. It’s estimated that 33,000 children born in the U.S. are given birthright American citizenship every year, solely due to their foreign parents arriving in the country on a temporary visa, most often a tourist visa, just before they were born.
Several decades later, those same children can then sponsor their parents for green cards, allowing them to have legal status to remain in the United States. Reports have revealed that birth tourism is most widespread across Turkish nationals in New York City, Chinese nationals in California, Russian nationals in Florida, and Middle Easterners in Illinois.
In a series of posts on X, officials with the State Department said they have recently brought down in West Africa “a sophisticated birth tourism network of more than 100 foreign nationals using fraudulent documents and visa ‘fixers’ to get themselves visas … to get U.S. citizenship for their children.” The posts also revealed that in North Africa, the agency “revoked over 100 visas for ‘birth tourist’ parents who came to the United States primarily to give birth so their children would get U.S. citizenship.”
According to a report from Breitbart News, a single U.S. embassy located in Europe discovered over 400 suspected cases of birth tourism since 2024, which investigators were able to trace back to six different companies that coach Europeans on how they can secure a temporary visa to enter the U.S. without revealing their sole purpose for travel being to deliver their children on American soil.
“We shut it down, revoked their visas, and permanently banned several fraudsters from traveling to the United States ever again,” officials wrote in one of the X posts. “A U.S. embassy in West Africa uncovered a sophisticated birth tourism network of more than 100 foreign nationals using fraudulent documents and visa ‘fixers’ to get themselves visas in order to get U.S. citizenship for their children.”
“We shut it down, revoked these foreign nationals’ visas, and are coordinating with local authorities to systematically identify and cut off any similar operations,” the official State Department account said. “A U.S. visa is a privilege, not a right. The State Department is taking action around the world to stop this abuse, dismantle birth tourism networks, and hold accountable those who try to scam our system.”
Under President Trump, the State Department is defending the integrity of U.S. citizenship by ending illegal birth tourism schemes.
No foreigner is permitted to obtain a visitor visa for the primary purpose of acquiring U.S. citizenship for a child by giving birth in the U.S.
— Department of State (@StateDept) June 10, 2026
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One user commenting on the series of posts responded by suggesting that the State Department needed to go further, writing, “In fact they should be visa ban for all the children of third world countries presidents, governors and political leadership. Let them stay back and attend this school their fathers are building and be treated in their countries hospitals. If this done. Poverty and bad governance in those countries will be reduced by half.”
Someone else said, “But why not just end birthright citizenship all together? It’s completely retarded to believe a Chinese couple can come to America as a tourist, drop a baby, and now they are just as American as me…. In addition to all the legal benefits that come with it. End it.” Kelly for Texas posted, “H1B and F1 visa holders shouldn’t be giving birth to citizens either. No difference.”
If you are interested in American history, check out our The Old World Show history videos, such as this one on the leading men of Colonial Virginia: