US revokes more than 6,000 visas in birth tourism crackdown

• The US State Department says it has revoked more than 6,000 visas linked to participation in or facilitation of birth tourism

• The latest announcement provides no nationality breakdown; an earlier update said more than 700 revoked visas belonged to Chinese nationals

• The action concerns visa cancellations and does not, by itself, establish deportations or criminal convictions

The United States has revoked more than 6,000 visas from foreign nationals it says participated in or facilitated birth tourism, according to the State Department’s latest update on its enforcement campaign.

In a post on its official X account on Thursday, the department said its Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force was identifying people involved in the practice and taking action against them.

The announcement covers both those accused of travelling for birth tourism and those said to have helped arrange it. The department did not provide a breakdown between the two categories or identify the nationalities affected.

The latest figure follows an announcement on 31 October that more than 4,000 visas had been revoked in connection with birth tourism. Since both updates expressed the totals as minimum thresholds, they do not establish precisely how many additional visas have been cancelled.

In its October update, the department said more than 700 of the revoked visas belonged to Chinese nationals. Thursday’s statement did not update that figure or provide comparable information for other countries.

The enforcement action centres on restrictions governing B-category nonimmigrant visas. Under a State Department rule, travel primarily intended to obtain US citizenship for a child through birth in the country is not a permissible basis for issuing such a visa.

The rule also establishes a rebuttable presumption about the purpose of travel when a consular officer has reason to believe an applicant will give birth during her stay. This means the applicant has an opportunity to demonstrate that obtaining citizenship for the child is not the primary reason for the visit.

The measure concerns eligibility for a visa; it did not change the rules governing how US citizenship is acquired.

Similarly, the department’s announcement concerns visa revocations. Cancellation of a visa does not, on its own, establish that the holder has been deported or convicted of a criminal offence.

The State Department established the Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force on 12 August. At the time, it said more than 600 visas had already been revoked worldwide.

On 23 September, secretary of state Marco Rubio announced visa restrictions targeting people who knowingly participate in or facilitate birth tourism. Certain family members could also fall within the scope of those restrictions.

The department separately introduced an online portal for reporting suspected visa fraud.

Thursday’s announcement places the reported total above the thresholds disclosed in previous updates, but leaves unanswered how the revocations are distributed by nationality, when the individual decisions were taken and how many involved participants rather than facilitators.

With IANS inputs