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President Trump lost his battle to weaken birthright citizenship at the Supreme Court in June. Trump's defeat spurred his signing an executive order - now blocked by a federal court - to ban birth tourism. That is what the White House says happens when companies cater to foreign nationals seeking to give birth on American soil. Texas Republicans have taken up Trump's cause, as Houston Public Media's Andrew Schneider reports.
ANDREW SCHNEIDER, BYLINE: The Supreme Court recently struck down President Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship as unconstitutional, reaffirming that virtually anyone born in the United States is a citizen, regardless of their parents' legal status. When the ruling didn't go his way, Trump went at it from another angle, alleging birth tourism brings people to the U.S. to game the system. He and Texas Governor Greg Abbott referred to billboards in South Texas offering birth packages at hospitals. Here's Abbott on Fox News in July.
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GREG ABBOTT: They must be investigated to determine whether or not they are involved in birth tourism. And if so, take action against them, including what I call the death penalty for a business, and that is to pull their license so they would not be able to operate.
SCHNEIDER: And over the summer, Texas attorney general and Republican U.S. Senate candidate, Ken Paxton, launched investigations into two hospitals, including the one with the billboards, Mission Regional Medical Center. For its part, Mission Regional, which is near the Mexico border, issued a statement noting that the two billboards were in Texas and were just designed to alert an underserved community about access to maternal health care.
Paxton is also suing the Houston area's De'Ai Postpartum Care Center, a business he says is facilitating birth tourism by Chinese nationals in state court. De'Ai's attorney declined to comment to NPR, but the company denied the charges in court filings. There have been allegations for years and some prosecutions in the past involving companies catering to Chinese nationals seeking to give birth in the U.S.
AMMON BLAIR: Pregnancy isn't illegal. Childbirth isn't illegal, and legitimate medical travel isn't illegal.
SCHNEIDER: Ammon Blair, a former U.S. Border Patrol agent now at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which backs stronger immigration enforcement, says it won't be easy for Texas to prove its case. Laws against lying on visa applications, fraud and money laundering can all be used to prosecute people and businesses, but Blair says they are hard to enforce.
BLAIR: Unfortunately, the burden of proof is now going to be on the state to determine the intent of that individual coming into the United States.
SCHNEIDER: Immigration advocates argue that attacks on birth tourism are a continuation of the effort to undermine birthright citizenship. Paxton calls birthright citizenship, quote, "a scam." But Julia Gelatt of the Migration Policy Institute says it's important to note how little birth tourism there actually is.
JULIA GELATT: That's a pretty small phenomenon. Less than 1% of U.S. births annually can be attributed to birth tourism.
SCHNEIDER: Houston immigration attorney Gordon Quan says he thinks Paxton and Abbott are exaggerating the problem for political gain in an election year.
GORDON QUAN: We have a number of people who have been here out of status for years and have children here. They didn't necessarily come for that purpose, but the children were born by parents who were not in legal status. And again, I think the Supreme Court has said that, you know, those are children who are U.S. citizens by birth.
SCHNEIDER: Quan says the emphasis on birthright citizenship and birth tourism will advance a message Texas Republican leaders have already been making that immigrants are not welcome in the state. For NPR News, I'm Andrew Schneider in Houston.
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