Travel Agents Charged With Running ‘Birth Tourism’ Schemes Across SoCal
Travel Agents Charged With Running ‘Birth Tourism’ Schemes Across SoCal
POSTED 12:27 PM, JANUARY 31, 2019, BY LOS ANGELES TIMES
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Federal agents escort residents from an apartment in Rowland Heights during a 2015 raid on an alleged birth tourism operation. (Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)
A group of travel agents have been charged with running illicit “birth tourism” schemes across Southern California that allegedly brought hundreds of pregnant Chinese clients to the U.S. illegally so they could deliver their children on American soil, according to court records made public Thursday.
The charges are the culmination of a long-running investigation by agents from the Department of Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service into three outfits operating for years in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire and Orange County that charged as much as $100,000 for their clandestine services — a price tag authorities say Chinese parents-to-be readily paid to make sure their children would be citizens of what one company’s brochures called the “most attractive nationality.”
“These cases allege a wide array of criminal schemes that sought to defeat our immigration laws — laws that welcome foreign visitors so long as they are truthful about their intentions when entering the country,” U.S. Atty. Nick Hanna said in a statement. “Statements by the operators of these birthing houses show contempt for the United States, while they were luring clients with the power and prestige of U.S. citizenship for their children.”
Arrested Thursday morning were Dongyuan Li, 41, of Irvine, who was identified in court records as an executive at You Win USA Vacation Services in Irvine, as well as Michael Wei Yueh Liu, 53, of Rancho Cucamonga, and Jing Dong, 42, of Fontana, who authorities said owned and operated a company called USA Happy Baby in San Bernardino.
Read the full story on LATimes.com.
https://ktla.com/2019/01/31/travel-a...-across-socal/
