US President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on Thursday aimed at denying citizenship to children born in the United States because of commercial "birth tourism."
Trump is also seeking to deny birthright citizenship for children born of some foreign diplomatic staff in the US and, potentially, US territories in the future, according to an Axios report.
Limiting birthright citizenship has been one of the top priorities in the Republican president's crackdown on immigration.
An earlier effort by Trump was rejected by the Supreme Court in June, prompting him to call upon Congress to act.
Birth tourism numbers estimated to be in low five figures
No US law outright bars birth tourism, but a federal regulation implemented in 2020 during Trump’s first term prohibits using temporary tourist and business \for the primary purpose of obtaining U.S. citizenship for a newborn. People who engage in birth tourism schemes could be prosecuted for fraud or other related crimes.
There are no official figures tallying the number of foreigners who come to the US for the explicit purpose of giving birth and obtaining citizenship for their children, or the cost to taxpayers.
The Center for Immigration Studies, which supports lower levels of immigration, estimated in an analysis in 2020 that between 20,000-25,000 mothers came to the US for birth tourism in a year-long period between 2016-2017.
There were 3.6 million births in the US in 2025.