Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-Texas) announced Friday that a Houston-area “birth tourism” center accused of helping Chinese nationals travel to Texas to give birth and obtain U.S. citizenship for their children has agreed to close.
De’Ai Postpartum Care Center and its operators agreed to cease operations under a proposed final judgment and permanent injunction filed September 18 in Fort Bend County District Court, Bloomberg Law reported.
Paxton’s office described the resolution as a legal victory and said the center will stop facilitating births and coaching foreign nationals on how to evade immigration restrictions.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Paxton sued the center in April, alleging that it primarily marketed services to Chinese clients and had claimed responsibility for “1,000+ American-born babies.”
The state also alleged the operation used at least four Houston-area properties and coached clients on U.S. visa procedures, including advising women to apply for visas “before pregnancy” to reduce scrutiny.
“I will do everything in my power to stop foreign nationals from unlawfully exploiting our immigration system through the scam of ‘birth tourism,’” Paxton said. “This operation helped Chinese foreign nationals come to Texas to evade our laws. Now, we have shut it down.”
State Case Focused On Alleged Visa And Consumer-Law Violations
The State Department states that travel for the primary purpose of giving birth in the United States to obtain U.S. citizenship for a child is not a permissible basis for a visitor visa. Paxton’s civil petition accused De’Ai and operators Lin Suling and Lai Wan Lin-Chan of deceptive trade practices, tampering with governmental records, unlawful harboring and concealment, and other alleged violations of Texas law.
The operators had denied the state’s allegations in court filings before the proposed injunction, reported Texas Public Radio.
Birthright Citizenship Remains Unchanged
The U.S. Supreme Court held June 30 in Trump v. Barbara that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Texas case targeted the center’s alleged business and immigration-related conduct.
Nothing in the proposed Texas judgment purports to revoke citizenship from children previously born to the center’s clients.”
Paxton’s office is also investigating Mission Regional Medical Center and Knapp Medical Center in South Texas over separate birth-tourism allegations, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
