“The Department of Justice will zealously protect the sanctity of United States citizenship by investigating and prosecuting those who fraudulently exploit our immigration system,” said Deputy Attorney General Colin McDonald.
Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, birthright citizenship has been a red-hot topic. On his first day in office in 2025, the President signed an executive order, to challenge the automatic citizenship granted to children of unauthorized immigrants born on U.S. soil. Just last week, the Supreme Court issued a landmark 6-3 ruling which struck down the order and suggested that Congress would need to amend federal law “or otherwise enact new legislation” to establish exceptions.
But that, of course, will not be where the conversation ends.
Pew Research Data reveals that nearly 10% of all babies born in the U.S. each year are born to illegal immigrant or temporarily-legal mothers (320,000 in 2023). It’s unclear how many exactly fall explicitly into the category of “birth tourism,” where pregnant foreigners travel with the goal of giving birth on U.S. soil so their children can receive birthright U.S. citizenship, but conservative estimates put it at around 36,000 to 40,000 annually.
Due to its proximity to both east Asia (relative to the rest of the nation) and the U.S.-Mexico border, southern California has long been a hotbed for birth tourism. Aside from its geographic position, it is also an attractive destination for non-citizen parents due to California’s more lax immigration policies, the region’s climate, and pockets of high-concentration immigrant communities (the Asian demographic is the predominant racial group in Irvine, for instance).
In and of itself, giving birth on U.S. soil as a non-citizen is not a crime. But lying on visa applications, wire fraud, and money laundering are—and all too often, these offenses are commonplace and sometimes actively encouraged by birth tourism businesses. Three such businesses, all located in southern California, were the subjects of a first-of-its-kind federal investigation in 2019 after authorities learned of them while conducting international undercover operations.
Irvine’s own Dongyuan Li became the first of 19 defendants to plead guilty after being indicted by federal officials. The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that the operators “not only committed widespread immigration fraud and engaged in international money laundering, they also defrauded property owners when leasing the apartments and houses used in their birth tourism schemes.”
Her business, You Win USA Vacation Services Corp (also known as You Win USA Vacation Resort)—which she operated out of Irvine from 2013 to 2015 and served more than 500 clients—assisted Chinese nationals (some of whom readily paid fees ranging from $40,000 to $100,000), in traveling to the United States so their children could be born in America before traveling back to Asia.
Reportedly, this involved coaching clients in how to lie on tourist visa applications, how to pass the U.S. Consulate interview in China, conceal the visibility of their pregnancies, and circumvent tipping off law enforcement and customs officials on U.S. soil. This involved an elaborate scheme of having clients first fly from China to Hawaii (with the Trump International Hotel in Honolulu as their destination), then make separate arrangements to fly to California. Afterwards, the clients would drive to Irvine and stay in one of 20 apartments managed by Li at The Carlyle at Colton Plaza, a “boutique luxury apartment” complex boasting “indulgent living” and “resort-style grounds.” Amenities include “private balconies, a resort-style pool, and cabanas with flat-screen televisions.”
Indeed, for some, their stay at The Carlyle was akin to an extended stay at a resort. Instead of returning after two weeks in the United States, as is typical for a U.S. visa, clients would generally stay for several months. Often, mothers had to travel before their baby bumps were visible so as not to raise suspicions.
Two Orange County hospitals—Hoag and Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center—were known favorites of Li’s, as documented by the Orange County Register four years before her arrest.
On numerous occasions, the Chinese nationals had no intention of paying their hospital bills in full.
“Hongbao Xu and Xiaojing Cao arrived at LAX from China on Feb. 10, 2014,” reported Roxana Kopetman and Scott Schwebke. “In March, they opened a bank account with $34,000. A few days later, there was a wire transfer of more than $203,000. Between March and May, there were several charges to that account from pricey outlets: the Wynn Las Vegas Hotel, the Bose Store, Rolex in Costa Mesa and Louis Vuitton in Beverly Hills. The couple had a baby on April 16.”
“The hospital charged them $28,845.29 for his birth. The father paid $4,080,” Kopetman and Schwebke continued. “On May 29, they transferred out $220,000 to China. A day later, the couple went back to China with their newborn infant.”
After pleading guilty to visa fraud and conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, Li was forced to forfeit over $2 million in assets. Her husband, Chao Chen, was also sentenced to 37 months’ imprisonment—though he remains in China and is considered a fugitive.
Theirs is far from the only instance of this taking place in southern California. Other examples of arrests and indictments made in conjunction with maternity house schemes include Michael Wei Yueh Liu of Rancho Cucamonga; Jing Dong of Fontana; Wen Rui Deng of Los Angeles; Wen Rui Deng, Li Yan Lang, and Wen Shan Sun of Rowland Heights;
In 2013, Los Angeles County officials issued code violations to more than a dozen maternity hotels after local neighborhoods began complaining about residential properties in their communities being used as fronts to operate hotels. This was, arguably, the spark that lit the fire and led to federal agents raiding more than 20 properties in 2015.
Though southern California’s birthing house operators have been much quieter as of late, they still should not take solace in the Supreme Court’s ruling on Trump v. Barbara. Hours after the ruling was declared, Deputy Attorney General Colin McDonald issued a memo urging the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. attorneys “to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of birth tourism schemes.”
“Regrettably, the American system is exploited each year by thousands of foreigners who travel to the United States under false pretenses to give birth and secure citizenship for their child,” said McDonald.
“The Department of Justice will zealously protect the sanctity of United States citizenship by investigating and prosecuting those who fraudulently exploit our immigration system,” read the memo. “Together, we will bring illegal birth tourism to an end and those responsible to justice.”
