(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Recent legislation by GOP lawmakers highlighted a longstanding but little known loophole that allowed Chinese nationals to gain backdoor U.S. citizenship for their children via an Obama-era visa policy.
Reps. Tom Tiffany, R-Wisc., and Chip Roy, R-Texas, introduced the One Nation, One Visa Policy Act in the House last week to prevent Chinese mothers from traveling to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, in order to exploit America’s controversial birthright citizenship practices.
“U.S. citizenship is valuable, not something foreign holidaymakers should be able to pick up like a hotel gift-shop souvenir,” Tiffany said in a press release.
🚨An Obama-era loophole expanded under Biden lets women from China travel visa-free to the Northern Mariana Islands to give birth and secure U.S. citizenship for their kids.
It’s so out of hand that births to Chinese nationals have outnumbered births to U.S. residents there. pic.twitter.com/Ppu54LbL9X
— Rep. Tom Tiffany (@RepTiffany) March 4, 2026
A parallel Senate bill by Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla.; Jim Banks, R-Ind.; and Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., also sought to end a visa waiver program, first implemented in 2009, that granted 45 days of unfettered access to U.S. island territories in the Pacific for those holding a Hong Kong passport.
“In 2009, former President Obama created a categorical parole program that enabled Chinese nationals to visit the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) without a tourist visa and the vetting that entails,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to then-Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem and Interior Sec. Doug Burgum. “This has opened the United States to significant security threats by creating a veritable cottage industry of Chinese nationals giving birth in the CNMI and gaining access to U.S. citizenship.”
Mullin is now favored to take over Noem’s DHS position after she was reassigned on Friday by President Donald Trump.
The lawmakers cited “recent” reporting by the Wall Street Journal, although online records indicated that the newspaper first highlighted the concern about birth tourism in the Pacific territories nearly 10 years ago, after Trump first took office in 2017.
However, Trump has forced so-called birthright citizenship to the forefront in his second term, issuing an executive order on the issue and later calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to decide it after activist judges attempted to block the order with injunctions.
The case hinges on the 20th-century reinterpretations of the 14th Amendment that ignored the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in order to declare anyone born on U.S. soil an automatic citizen.
The prospect of “anchor babies” has since incentivized illegal immigration, with the problem coming to a head under the Biden administration’s open-border policies.
Yet, China’s backdoor birth-tourism industry poses a more sinister national-security threat, lawmakers noted.
“Communist China has a track record for exploiting America’s weaknesses to advance its interests and undermine our national security, and the horrific reports of how they have exploited an Obama-era visa program is a prime example,” Scott said. “… It’s time to shut Communist China’s back door into our nation by eliminating this reckless program and ensuring the full vetting of any Chinese national who wishes to come to our nation.”
Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
