Trump's offensive against 'birth tourism' puts pregnant women at the border under scrutiny

President Donald Trump's latest crackdown on "birth tourism" has heightened anxieties along the U.S.-Mexico border. For decades, Mexican women have used tourist visas to travel to the United States to give birth, a practice now facing increased immigration scrutiny under new executive orders.

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Two executive orders that President Trump issued last August 6 to combat 'birth tourism'.

These measures, issued on August 6, are part of Trump's broader effort to limit birthright citizenship, a right protected by the 14th Amendment. A previous executive order attempting to curtail this right was blocked by the Supreme Court, prompting these new directives. Anthropologist Víctor Clark Alfaro, director of the Binational Human Rights Center in Tijuana, explained that the new policies translate to stricter controls at U.S. ports of entry and consulates for pregnant foreign nationals.

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But the precedent for these executive orders that they have just issued is the ruling that the Supreme Court gave to stop what Trump intended: to eliminate citizenship by birth.

"Those are the ones who will be meticulously interrogated," Clark Alfaro stated. The impact is particularly significant in Tijuana, a city deeply connected to California, where many families have members born on both sides of the border. Clark Alfaro noted that the measures could extend to parents whose children were previously born in the U.S. after entering on tourist visas. "For several days now, they have started canceling visas, B1/B2 visas, for parents whose children were born in the United States," he reported.

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Those are the ones who will be meticulously interrogated.

The U.S. had already begun restricting "birth tourism" during Trump's first term. In January 2020, the State Department modified its regulations to allow consulates to deny visitor visas if the primary purpose of travel was perceived to be giving birth for U.S. citizenship. However, U.S. regulations permit entry on a visitor visa for medical treatment, meaning pregnancy itself is not a barrier to entry. Jesús Fabián R. Walters Arballo, president of the Baja Health Cluster in Tijuana, expressed concern about potential health consequences arising from the tightened border controls, stating, "What we don't want is for there to be a health problem or for them to be put at risk for that reason."

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Many border residents, because it is part of the cultural and social phenomenon of the border, many border residents with tourist visas, the wives crossed so that the son or daughter would be born there and then they would return.