California Residents Protest Chinese ‘Birth Tourism Maternity Hotel’

Chino Hills, CA — More than 70 protestors gathered outside of what they refer to as a “maternity hotel” in a residential area at a busy intersection. The San Bernadino Sun is reporting that the hotel is being targeted as a place where “birth tourism” takes place. For those unfamiliar with the term, birth tourism is when pregnant women travel to the States on a tourist visa in hopes they will give birth to a child while on US soil, granting the child automatic US citizenship.

Protestors with signs reading “Not in Chino Hills” and “No Birth Tourism” were the opening salvo being fired by a group called Not In Chino Hills. Area residents say that the “hotel” is in a residential area and they wantto keep all businesses away, not just this one.

One of the protestors named Rosanna said:

“Chino Hills is a nice family oriented town. We don’t want a maternal hotel that is a business in a residential area.”

Mitchell, another one of the protestors went even further saying:

“And there’s the moral issue. My father came to this country from Peru and left us all (eight children) until he earned enough money to get us visas to come here legally. All of us (children) worked in the system and have done really well. There are three doctors among the siblings.”

Children born in the US are automatically given dual citizenship when they are born on US soil. Their passports give them a step up on other immigrants who are trying to bring family members over legally.

Protestor Kelly Good said that she has seen an inordinate amount of pregnant Chinese women staying at the home and getting on tourist busses.

Good said:

“These woman are coming to the United States under false pretenses…They are finding out about this through a website that instructs them on how to come legally, but that is under false pretenses. They are pregnant and their goal is to have a baby here in the United States so that the child can be a United States citizen. Action should be taken against “these physicians and the hospitals…that are contracting with this `hotel’ to treat these residents and their babies.”

The group plans on filing complaints with the police and zoning boards in order to get the Maternity Hotel shut down, but city officials say it is likely that they will just spring up somewhere else.