Thread: GOP bill blocks pregnant immigrants from entering the U.S.

By Pete Kasperowicz | May 24, 2015 | 5:00 am

Several House Republicans have proposed legislation that would prevent pregnant immigrants from entering the United States, in a bid to stop them from giving birth in the U.S. to bestow U.S. citizenship on their children.

The Stop Birth Tourism Act, from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., is the latest GOP attempt to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States.

In a letter to his House colleagues seeking support for the bill, Rohrabacher said U.S. consular officers are allowed to turn immigrants away for several reasons, but not for reasons related to what he says is "birth tourism."

"[T]hey do not have the ability to refuse a tourist visa if a pregnant foreigner is likely to come to the United States solely for the purpose of giving birth," he wrote. "My proposal would correct this problem by giving consular officers the authority to deem an alien as ineligible to enter the U.S. on a tourist visa if the officer determines she is likely to give birth in the U.S. if admitted."

He said birth tourism has created an industry in which some people have set up "maternity hotels," which immigrants use to deliver children.

"These maternity hotels are normally single-family homes in our neighborhoods that host numerous pregnant foreigners for months at a time, violating local zoning laws and putting an undue burden on our neighborhoods, hospitals and local governments," he wrote. "Rarely do these maternity hotels have the ability to care for ill mothers and/or their babies, resulting in hospital visits that unfairly come at the cost of the American taxpayers."

Rohrabacher's bill says the government "may require" that a woman seeking to enter the U.S. provide certification by a healthcare provider that she is not pregnant. Or, if she is pregnant, some certification may be required "as to the status of the pregnancy."

That information is required to help determine whether she should be turned away.

"An alien seeking admission to the United States as a non-immigrant ... who a consular officer or the secretary of State determines... is pregnant, and if admitted to the United States, is likely to give birth in the United States, is inadmissible," the bill reads.

Other GOP sponsors of his bill are Reps. Buddy Carter, Ga.; Mike Conaway, Texas; Scott DesJarlais, Tenn.; Louie Gohmert, Texas; Paul Gosar, Ariz.; Sam Johnson, Texas; Walter Jones, N.C.; Steve King, Iowa; Pete Olson, Texas; and Ryan Zinke, Mont.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/go...rticle/2564954

As a Republican woman, I am really insulted by this bill. Your solution to this problem is to force women who want to visit our country legally into pregnancy exams to take a trip and visit Disney World or to come here on business, because of nothing she did wrong, but because our laws and policies are screwed up? Really?

Fix the damn policies and bar citizenship to children of all non-citizens who don't have a green card for permanent legal residence. That would stop it for all illegal aliens, temporary workers, students, visa holders, visitors and tourists, and rightly so. The 14th Amendment doesn't convey citizenship to theses people and never did, our stupid government has been doing it, so stop this stupid practice of handing out citizenship based on a birth certificate, check the citizenship of the parents, and if they aren't citizens and do not have a green card, then there children are not citizens of the United States. Period.

What is so hard about that?

You can't treat these women coming here legally through the system different than you treat illegal aliens! COME ON!

http://www.alipac.us/f12/36-000-babi...p-kids-319124/

"These maternity hotels are normally single-family homes in our neighborhoods that host numerous pregnant foreigners for months at a time, violating local zoning laws and putting an undue burden on our neighborhoods, hospitals and local governments," he wrote. "Rarely do these maternity hotels have the ability to care for ill mothers and/or their babies, resulting in hospital visits that unfairly come at the cost of the American taxpayers."

That's not their fault, this is your fault. Why are American taxpayers paying for any childbirth? US taxpayers should not be paying for any birthing. The only program I know of that taxes US taxpayers for this is Medicaid. Why in the hell does Medicaid pay for pregnancy services of any kind for anyone? If you're on Medicaid or Medicaid-eligible, then you need to stop having children you can't afford to have, let alone raise. I have no problem with Medicaid in general, but to include pregnancy services? That is insanity, because it encourages people who already can't sustain their family to grow their family at taxpayer expense.

Remove pregnancy services from Medicaid. There is absolutely nothing rational or right about using Medicaid to pay for pregnancy services which is taxing Americans who work, earn and plan their families including limiting the size to that which they can afford to pay for someone who doesn't, and that is just wrong, wrong, wrong on all levels from A to Z, top to bottom. And from trying to find out how much this costs, I expect the number is so large they aren't reporting it. The only number I could find is $21 billion for "unplanned" pregnancies which is a fraction of the total births covered by Medicaid and its sister booming industry called CHIP. It's at least $100 billion a year and then of course, there's all the post pregnancy coverage, and the increased cost to poverty programs for the now enlarged poverty covered "families".

STOP THIS IDIOCY!

Originally Posted by Judy

Fix the damn policies and bar citizenship to children of all non-citizens who don't have a green card for permanent legal residence.... The 14th Amendment doesn't convey citizenship to theses people and never did.

Some people believe that birthright citizenship is enshrined in our Constitution. That is not true. The text of the 14th Amendment reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” The crucial phrase is bolded.

If the writers of the 14th Amendment intended to legitimize citizenship for babies born to travelers, there would have been no need to include, "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." As statements by the writers of the Reconstruction Amendments (the 13th, 14th, and 15th) make clear, people who do not owe allegiance to the United States are not included in the provisions of the 14th Amendment. So people who have not sworn an oath of allegiance to our country cannot be considered citizens. Period.

We can of course apply or laws to foreigners who are in our country. If foreigners are convicted of a crime, we can imprison and then deport them. But imprisoning them does not transform them into citizens. It merely makes them criminal aliens whom we will deport.

There's no need to demonize women. Just fix the policy by 1) reading the 14th Amendment and 2) clarifying the intent of the people who actually wrote the Reconstruction Amendments.

http://www.alipac.us/f12/49-u-s-gove...s-feds-319825/

Thank you Rep. Rohrabacher!

W

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

Thank you Rep. Rohrabacher! (R-Calif.)

W

AND: Other GOP sponsors of his bill are

Reps. Buddy Carter, Ga.;

Mike Conaway, Texas;

Scott DesJarlais, Tenn.;

Louie Gohmert, Texas;

Paul Gosar, Ariz.;

Sam Johnson, Texas;

Walter Jones, N.C.;

Steve King, Iowa;

Pete Olson, Texas;

and Ryan Zinke, Mont.

Its not the right fix imo but it could still have better effects then what is going on now. In the end one must accept that NO one has a right to visit another country or immigrate to another country. Its a priviledge and those granting it can set any set of rules as they want. When it comes to it the US has some of the easiest to abuse rules of any other developed country. If some foreigner doesn't like it they better take a look at there own countries laws for tourist visa's and immigration and will likely find that the rules their own country has for foreigners is far stricter even after the US could make such a change.

Judy wrote:

As a Republican woman, I am really insulted by this bill. Your solution to this problem is to force women who want to visit our country legally into pregnancy exams to take a trip and visit Disney World or to come here on business, because of nothing she did wrong, but because our laws and policies are screwed up? Really?

I hear you, I really do. However, if we can't have the entire 12" pizza pie right now, why not take a slice while we continue working on getting the whole pie. Just saying .........