Every year, the first baby born on American soil, on Guam and in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, is celebrated. This year, however, is quite different for the CNMI when a 30-year-old tourist from Shanghai, China gave birth to the first baby of 2025 in the U.S. territory.
It renewed concerns about continued birth tourism, where mothers enter the U.S. or its territories for the primary purpose of giving birth so that their newborn will be a U.S. citizen.
The CNMI’s tourism body unequivocally said it does not support birth tourism, according to Marianas Visitors Authority Executive Director Christopher A. Concepcion.
“The MVA does not promote birth tourism in our source markets. We never have. We welcome all visitors to the Marianas as long as they enter legally and comply with our laws,” he said. “It is not illegal for foreigners to give birth in the CNMI or the USA.”
Concepcion said if the federal government wishes to limit birthright citizenship to those whose parents are already U.S. citizens, that’s up to them.
“The MVA takes no position on this matter,” he succinctly said.
Newly sworn-in CNMI Del. Kimberlyn King-Hinds said the decision of non-citizens to travel to the Northern Marianas to give birth is counter to the islands’ goals of establishing a robust immigration and visitor system that will be crucial to the sustainability of the tourism industry.
She said the forthcoming implementation of the CNMI Economic Vitality and Security Travel Authorization Program, or EVS-TAP, will provide greater safeguards to screening and processing visitors, a change that is welcomed and long needed.
The EVS-TAP was first proposed in 2019 and aims to enhance security measures while ensuring the orderly entry of People’s Republic of China nationals for tourism purposes.
It involves electronic screening, a maximum 14-day stay, and additional security measures for Chinese nationals.
Besides the EVS-TAP, there are more ways in which the CNMI local and federal agencies can all collaborate, the delegate said.
“I look forward to working with CHCC (Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.) to see how communication from federal partners can help craft policies that can disincentivize and deter individuals from considering engaging in this practice,” King-Hinds said. “But we must acknowledge the main driver of birth tourism—birthright citizenship, granted to the CNMI by the Covenant.”
She said should the CNMI government determine that this primary driver of birth tourism should end, it has a critical role in showcasing its mutual consent to amend this provision.
“If done so, it would be the responsibility of the congressional office to secure the federal consent for this change,” she said.
Indigenous advocate: Something’s amiss
Liana Hofschneider said there’s something amiss that birth tourism continues to prosper in the CNMI.
The Indigenous advocate noted that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of babies delivered in the CNMI’s only public hospital, the Commonwealth Health Center, in the last decade or so.
“The impact on CHC, the only public-serving health institution, is clear in its inability to sustain the cost of its operation in nearly a decade,” she said.
Hofschneider squarely puts the blame on the CNMI’s leaders, local and federal.
“As an indigenous Chamorro advocate, I am deeply disturbed on the lack of concern by the elected leaders here in the CNMI and the U.S. delegate on the thousands of babies of foreign parents being delivered here and afforded U.S. citizenship both as tourists and work visas,” she said.
Birth tourism, she said, is not only confined to Chinese tourists, as other nationals such as those from Russia, have taken advantage of America’s jus soli legal principle where being born in the U.S., Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the CNMI automatically grants those born in those places U.S. citizenship, regardless of the nationality of their parents.
“This tourist market is one of the longest staying, some as long as one month, in the CNMI at five-star hotels like the former Hyatt Regency Saipan. But we must also take into considerations foreign workers on work permits or work visas from countries such as South Korea, the Philippines, Bangladesh, as well as from the Micronesian region whose citizenship are distinctly different, and treaties or agreements are separate and unique to each of the island nation—Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau with the U.S.,” she said.
Hofschneider then took aim on King-Hinds, whom she lost to in the 2024 general elections, regarding her purported unclear stand on the birth tourism issue.
“This is not surprising because this is exactly what (her) platform and her aggressive advocacy for an unabated Annex IX policy, which translates to unlimited, open and direct flights from China to the CNMI...King-Hinds failed to share in her platform on her plans on how to address this ‘birthing tourism’ in the CNMI,” Hofscheider said.
She also wants a reassessment of the CNMI’s Covenant Agreement with the U.S. government as it pertains to the jus soli legal principle.
“This should be and must be a grave concern to both the U.S. government and the CNMI government. Hence, it’s a must public policy priority and concern of the CNMI’s lone U.S. Congress delegate. Unfortunately, this is not the case,” she said.
Plug the loophole
She also said the U.S. Congress should not continue to turn a blind eye to this loophole in its public policy.
“Again, as a Chamorro advocate, both the U.S. and the CNMI government have to be concerned on the footprint impact on our environment, our natural resources, our access to quality health care, access to quality of life, access to our sacred spaces, and the risk and impact to our ancestral and indigenous rights to our land and ocean,” Hofschneider said. “These are serious public policy concerns that need immediate attention at the national and state or local level.”
She added that this U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service policy “impacts self-governance and self-determination on the full and complete decolonization of the Chamorro because population migration was one of the considerations of Covenant Agreement.”
On a final note, as a former CNMI Division of Immigration employee, Hofschneider said she misses the era when the CNMI had control of its borders.
”It is my fervent hope that...King-Hinds urgently and diligently work on this ‘birthing tourism’ immigration fiasco and address this policy loophole now under the USCIS,” she added.
Bigger issue
CNMI House Rep. Edwin K. Propst, meanwhile, said while birth tourism is a concern, CNMI authorities have bigger fish to fry like the entry of illegal drugs from off-island and human trafficking.
“While birth tourism is a concern, my greatest concern is the possible smuggling of meth, fentanyl, and human trafficking. Before we open up the floodgates, we need to ensure Customs Director Jose Mafnas and his Customs team are fully funded and have enough manpower and equipment to check every single flight coming in from mainland China and to ensure we don’t see a smuggling ring operating in the guise of bringing in tourists,” Propst said. “It is common knowledge that most of our drug lords and drug kingpins here in the CNMI come from China. Let’s ensure we don’t see mules coming in carrying more illegal drugs.”
Propst also encouraged CNMI leaders to consider quality over quantity when it comes to choosing the right tourism market for the CNMI.
“We have proponents of China here that want to open the floodgates to China and allow unlimited direct flights from China, because the ultimate goal is to bring in as many tourists as possible. That’s been our longstanding problem,” he said. “There are lobbyists here who strictly want to invest and support quantity of tourists versus the quality of tourists.”
He said if all the CNMI is receiving are low-budget tourists who come to the islands on prepaid package tours, then it’s questionable whether they help the local economy at all.
“Are they dining at local restaurants and shopping at local stores and partying at local bars or are they just staying in their hotels and touring around on a prepaid hotel car package deal?” he said.
In 2019, the CNMI House of Representatives passed a joint resolution that basically says the CNMI Legislature is open to limiting birthright citizenship in the Commonwealth.
That resolution seeks to limit birthright citizenship to children whose mother is either legally employed in the CNMI or a citizen of a nation under the Compact of Free Association.
A joint resolution means it has to be adopted by both the CNMI House of Representatives and CNMI Senate. It, however, is not a law and merely conveys the sentiment of the CNMI Legislature.
(1) comment
China adopted the one-child policy to their detriment and now they find themselves struggling on demographics so much so that they are trying all kinds of gimmicks to encourage more births, not unlike Korea and Japan, but to no avail. Then they have people fleeing to give birth elsewhere. Trump will stop that, to the US detriment.
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