Under the Donald Trump administration, new, stricter restrictions on the controversial practice of birth tourism have put Dominican citizens’ long-standing access to U.S. travel for childbirth under growing pressure. Birth tourism, the practice that sees foreign nationals travel to the U.S. specifically to give birth so their children can claim automatic U.S. citizenship by birthright, has become a key enforcement target for federal officials in recent months.
The U.S. Department of State has issued a formal clarification that standard B1/B2 tourist and business visas are not permitted to be used for the primary purpose of giving birth in the United States. The agency has made clear that visitors found misusing their travel documentation face immediate visa cancellation and long-term bans on future entry to the country.
To coordinate this enforcement push, the Trump administration established a dedicated interagency body, the Working Group for the Prevention of Birth Tourism, tasked with auditing travel patterns of nonimmigrant visa holders and flagging suspected cases of birth tourism. State Department data confirms that more than 600 visas have already been revoked tied to alleged birth tourism misuse.
Beyond penalizing individual travelers, federal authorities are also cracking down on the unregulated industry that facilitates these trips. Investigations are ongoing into commercial networks and companies that market birth tourism packages, offering services ranging from visa application support to pre-arranged hospital stays and postpartum care. Officials have issued additional warnings that travelers who intentionally hide their true purpose of travel, submit false information on visa applications, or overstay their approved visit window not only risk losing their current visas but also permanent disqualification from future U.S. entry.
The Department of State added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds broad statutory authority to revoke visas when misuse is confirmed, and emphasized that this targeted enforcement campaign against birth tourism will continue indefinitely as part of the administration’s immigration policy priorities.