A lawyer for the Trump administration during arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday leaned hard into his claim that so-called birth tourism is strong evidence that the U.S. policy of automatically giving citizenship to babies born in the country needs to end.
The lawyer, Solicitor General D. John Sauer, said there are many companies, particularly ones that cater to for Chinese and Russian elites, that offer to help them enter the U.S. so their children can be born there and gain citizenship.
“The congressional report that we cite in our brief talks about certain hot spots, like Russian elites coming to Miami through these birth tourism companies,” Sauer told the high court’s justices as President Donald Trump looked on from the gallery.
In January 2025, Trump signed an executive order that would effectively end birthright citizenship, which for more than 150 years has been considered the law of the land due to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
“Media reported as early as 2015 that, based on Chinese media reports, there are 500 — 500 — birth tourism companies in the People’s Republic of China, whose business is to bring people here to give birth and return to that nation,” said Sauer, who called that figure “striking” without saying what media reports he was referring to.
