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  1. #1
    Senior Member judyweller's Avatar
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    Anchor Baby Business for Chinese to get US Passports.

    For many pregnant Chinese, a U.S. passport for baby remains a powerful lure

    By Keith B. Richburg
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Sunday, July 18, 2010; A01

    SHANGHAI -- What can $1,475 buy you in modern China? Not a Tiffany diamond or a mini-sedan, say Robert Zhou and Daisy Chao. But for that price, they guarantee you something more lasting, with unquestioned future benefits: a U.S. passport and citizenship for your new baby.

    Zhou and Chao, a husband and wife from Taiwan who now live in Shanghai, run one of China's oldest and most successful consultancies helping well-heeled expectant Chinese mothers travel to the United States to give birth.

    The couple's service, outlined in a PowerPoint presentation, includes connecting the expectant mothers with one of three Chinese-owned "baby care centers" in California. For the $1,475 basic fee, Zhou and Chao will arrange for a three-month stay in a center -- two months before the birth and a month after. A room with cable TV and a wireless Internet connection, plus three meals, starts at $35 a day. The doctors and staff all speak Chinese. There are shopping and sightseeing trips.

    The mothers must pay their own airfare and are responsible for getting a U.S. visa, although Zhou and Chao will help them fill out the application form.

    At a time when China is prospering and the common perception of America here is of an empire in economic decline, the proliferation of U.S. baby services shows that for many Chinese, a U.S. passport nevertheless remains a powerful lure. The United States is widely seen as more of a meritocracy than China, where getting into a good university or landing a high-paying job often depends on personal connections.

    "They believe that with U.S. citizenship, their children can have a more fair competitive environment," Zhou said.

    There are no solid figures, but dozens of firms advertise "birth tourism" packages online, many of them based in Shanghai, and Zhao said the number has soared in the past five years. But he said that many are fly-by-night operations, unlike his high-quality service.

    "The customers we serve are very successful and very affluent," he said.

    'We are not snakeheads'

    Zhou and Chao insist that everything they do is legal, noting that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, says anyone born on U.S. soil has the right to citizenship.

    "We don't encourage moms to break the law -- just to take advantage of it," Zhou said. "It's like jaywalking. The policeman might fine you, but it doesn't break the law."

    "We are not snakeheads," he added, using the common term here for Chinese gangsters involved in smuggling illegal immigrants.

    U.S. officials confirm that it is not a crime to travel to the United States to give birth so that the child can have U.S. citizenship. "You don't deny someone because you know they're going to the U.S. to have children," said a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Beijing, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing embassy rules.

    The spokesman, who said expectant mothers typically claim they are going to the United States as tourists, compared the baby consultancies to services that help foreign students apply for American universities: "If you have the money, they give you the service. They tell you how to prepare your dossier."

    "I'm sure people in Congress would call it a loophole," the spokesman said.

    Many anti-immigration activists in the United States agree. Some argue that the 14th Amendment -- aimed at guaranteeing citizenship rights to freed black slaves -- was never meant to provide an instant passport to the children of people who are in the country illegally or who travel there expressly to gain U.S. citizenship for their child.

    The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department have no specific regulations regarding pregnant foreign visitors, which critics see as an issue.

    "The problem here is not with the travel agencies or even the women," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies. "The real problem is the State Department. The regulations do not permit them to turn pregnant women down."

    Krikorian said that it is unclear whether or how the 14th Amendment could be changed and that in any event, Congress has never seriously addressed the possibility.

    Zhou, a former marketing director, and Chao, a former television producer in Taiwan, said they have helped between 500 and 600 mothers give birth to American babies in the five years they have been in business. They started with themselves, when Chao went to the United States to give birth to daughter Fiona, now 4.


    An affluent clientele

    Now, they said, their clients include Chinese doctors, lawyers, business leaders, government officials, well-known media personalities -- most of whom do not want media attention and, Zhao said, would not agree to be interviewed.

    About 40 percent of their clients come from Shanghai, 30 percent from Beijing and the rest from Guangzhou and elsewhere, including Taiwan. Some, the couple said, were giving birth to their second child to skirt China's one-child policy. Most say they do not intend to live in the United States themselves.

    And all are affluent, Zhou and Chao said. Unlike the poor illegal immigrants from Central America who try to cross the border to have their babies in the United States, Zhou said, these Chinese parents fly in on first-class seats.

    "They also do some shopping," he said, "so they are contributing to the economy."

    The reasons they want U.S. passports for their babies are varied, but most come down to two key factors -- education and setting.

    "The mainland [China] moms believe the U.S. has better educational resources," Zhou said. This year, 10 million students are battling for 6.6 million spots at Chinese universities and the chance for a better life. "The competition is too fierce on the mainland," Zhou said.

    In their pitch to prospective clients, Zhou and Chao point out that as a U.S. citizen, a child has access to free public education from primary school through high school and that a full education in the United States can be much cheaper than at the top Chinese private schools and universities.

    Education was one thing Christina Chuo had in mind when, late in her pregnancy, she and her husband decided to have their first child in the United States in January and turned to Zhou and Chao for assistance.

    Chuo, 35, said that her brother and sister both studied in the United States and that "my parents paid a huge amount of money for their education" because they were foreign students. Giving her newborn U.S. citizenship, she said, would "provide one more choice for our baby."

    Equally important was the setting. "It's spacious and with no pollution," Chuo said. "We thought it would put us in a good mood looking at the nice scenery, the hills and the water."

    Chuo said she and her husband like living in Taiwan and are not interested in migrating to the United States, except, perhaps, when they retire. She said they got their visas by saying their purpose was tourism. But she worries it will not be so easy for others.

    "I am afraid in the future, with more people going to U.S., it will be harder to get a visa," she said.

    Researcher Wang Juan contributed to this report.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01402.html

  2. #2
    Senior Member elpasoborn's Avatar
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    "Chuo, 35, said that her brother and sister both studied in the United States and that "my parents paid a huge amount of money for their education" because they were foreign students. Giving her newborn U.S. citizenship, she said, would "provide one more choice for our baby."

    Which means what? How much "cheaper" is it to go to school if you're a citizen as opposed to going as a foreign student?
    BTW....here in El Paso, students from Mexico automatically get "in state tuition" at our local university. I know people who have lived here all their lives, went to that same university for a while and then moved to another state where they went to another school for maybe a year, returned to El Paso, reestablished themselves as an El Paso resident by waiting a year and returned to our local university where they were charged OUT OF STATE tuition because of that year they spent away. Those same people decided to go to a New Mexico university instead because there they could pay IN STATE tuition even though they had never lived in New Mexico. Our local university caters to Mexican students, not to Americans.

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    Our country is failing because we allow everybody to come leach off of us and drain our resources. There will come a point in time where it will no longer be considered valuable to have US Citizenship becuase we have given away all value. Its akin to locust who strip the trees of it value and then they move on to the next tree. They readily admiit they are using our own laws to their advantage and we (politicians) don't seem to be concerned? Birthright citizenship should require at least one parent to be a US Citizen otherwise they get a certificate of birth to take back to their home country to register that biirth and citizenship in their own country. Our 14th Amendment needs a supreme court interpretation to this. There is a reason our congress amended the constitution to require US Presidents to have natual born citizenship status. If we just give away freely US Citizenship then where exactly is the value of US natual born citizenship. How can I look at my birth certificate and that of my parents and say truthfully that this is the most valuable document I own? We sell US citizenship is what it amounts to. Why? All you have to have is a few dollars and you can buy US citizneship.
    "Where is our democracy if the federal government can break the laws written and enacted by our congress on behalf of the people?"

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    Senior Member elpasoborn's Avatar
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    "Our country is failing because we allow everybody to come leach off of us and drain our resources."

    "They readily admit they are using our own laws to their advantage and we (politicians) don't seem to be concerned?"

    Very Important distinctions PatriotAZGUY. "WE" is not us and it is those elected backstabbers that aren't doing the job we elected them to do or that they swore to do.

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    Senior Member Tbow009's Avatar
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    WHO

    Who is selling these Birthright tourism packages? I wasnt suprised.

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    Senior Member Richard's Avatar
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    The Hotel Marmara New York which offers birth tourism to Turks makes a very conveniently located tempting protest target.
    <img src=http://www.destination360.com/north-america/us/new-york/new-york/map-of-marmara-manhattan.gif>
    I support enforcement and see its lack as bad for the 3rd World as well. Remittances are now mostly spent on consumption not production assets. Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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    So, let me see if I understand how all this works. If I was somebody who didn't give a rats ass for our country and all I cared about was making money I can use the 14th Amendement to help me?

    Lets see, I could set up shop on the border, the Mexican side of course, stick my US Citizenship "For Sale Sign" up in my temporary office, offer my services for a fee as a male US Citizen to impregnate Hispanic women for the sole purpose of them claiming a biological US Citizenship. About two weeks before they pop, invite them to the US side as my guest, drive them to the local emergency room when its time (nah, I will just stay at home and call an ambulance), and then they can get their citizenship papers for their new born American citizen child. And all this would be perfectly legal seeing as prostituiton is not illegal in Mexico. I can use US laws to my financial advantage.

    Something seem very wrong with all this. It is no doubt time to change the rules on these people. US Citizenship should never be allowed for sale.
    "Where is our democracy if the federal government can break the laws written and enacted by our congress on behalf of the people?"

  8. #8
    Senior Member Ratbstard's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PatriotAZGUY
    So, let me see if I understand how all this works. If I was somebody who didn't give a rats ass for our country and all I cared about was making money I can use the 14th Amendement to help me?

    Lets see, I could set up shop on the border, the Mexican side of course, stick my US Citizenship "For Sale Sign" up in my temporary office, offer my services for a fee as a male US Citizen to impregnate Hispanic women for the sole purpose of them claiming a biological US Citizenship. About two weeks before they pop, invite them to the US side as my guest, drive them to the local emergency room when its time (nah, I will just stay at home and call an ambulance), and then they can get their citizenship papers for their new born American citizen child. And all this would be perfectly legal seeing as prostituiton is not illegal in Mexico. I can use US laws to my financial advantage.

    Something seem very wrong with all this. It is no doubt time to change the rules on these people. US Citizenship should never be allowed for sale.
    You couldn't do it. The government will hound actual citizens that father children to support their own. If fact the 1996 welfare reform laws mandate an American mother name the father or risk reduced welfare support. IA mothers though can get away with saying they don't know who might be the father then go home that night and sleep with him.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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    I think this business has been going on for years and tens of thousands of Chinese or other have been born in America as a direct result of birth tourism. What this story doesn't tell as that in 18-21 years, that anchor baby can bring in a wife from China, a brother, mother and father (again) and from that point on, they all can get U.S. citizenship.

    The Chinese will usually be highly educated to begin with and their kids will usually go on to become business owners, computer geniuses, doctors, biologists, scientists, programmers, etc. They rarely cause trouble, get good grades in school, are very disciplined and rarely impose on the system. If we had 10 million Chinese illegals here, I don't even think they would cost the country the same amount of money others do. Because they're typically highly intelligent, they would know better than form gangs or exploit the system.

    They wouldn't work at fast food joints, construction, hotels, cleaning companies for long, they would eventually own them. When was the last time you saw illegal Chinese immigrants causing trouble in the U.S.? Instead of running to the emergency room to have their anchor babies, they probably have their own doctors and 'birth centers' as the article states thus not depending on the hospital to deal with the costs.

  10. #10
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    Duplicate. Please post any further comments to:
    http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-206104.html
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