The Supreme Court came out with some decisions Monday and Tuesday that many conservatives are celebrating, but as they say, you can’t win ‘em all.
As many pundits expected, the High Court knocked down President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order, which said people born on American soil should not automatically be granted citizenship if their parents were here either illegally or temporarily. The court ruled otherwise in a 5-4 decision, arguing that the 14th Amendment specifically provides that anyone born here is regarded as a citizen.
This leaves the door open to the birthright tourism scam, where pregnant women either purposefully overstay their visas or sneak into the country illegally and have their babies.
So there’s nothing to be done after the SCOTUS decision, right?
Not so, says the DOJ. They reacted quickly, and in a department-wide memo, a top official ordered federal prosecutors to prioritize investigations and prosecutions against scammers who try to game the system:
Memorandum for DOJ Employees on Prosecution of Fraudulent Birth Tourism Schemes from Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/hoilA5o2TE
— U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) June 30, 2026
Now we’re talking.
If we catch you trying to cheat, you will be punished, the memo said:
A senior Justice Department official, Colin McDonald, told employees in a memo that people who come to the United States under "false pretenses" to give birth and secure citizenship for their child could be criminally charged under laws barring visa fraud, money laundering, identity theft and wire fraud.
"The Department of Justice will zealously protect the sanctity of United States citizenship by investigating and prosecuting those who fraudulently exploit our immigration system," McDonald wrote in a memo to all DOJ employees that was posted on social media.
Prior to issuing the memo, the DOJ had earlier hinted at the crackdown, calling birth tourism a “national security threat”:
Birth tourism schemes exploit our immigration laws and often violate our criminal laws. The Department of Justice will prioritize the prosecutions of birth tourism schemes across the country. Actors seeking to exploit loopholes to obtain automatic citizenship for their children…
— U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) June 30, 2026
Birth tourism schemes exploit our immigration laws and often violate our criminal laws. The Department of Justice will prioritize the prosecutions of birth tourism schemes across the country. Actors seeking to exploit loopholes to obtain automatic citizenship for their children pose a national security threat and will be brought to justice.
MORE FROM THE COURT: Trump Turns SCOTUS Lemons Into Lemonade: 'Too Bad' on Birthright, but Massive Wins Elsewhere
Clarence Thomas Goes Nuclear on SCOTUS Majority Over Birthright Citizenship Ruling
Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon reminded us Wednesday of a story showing how damaging (and lucrative) birth tourism scams can be:
Now that the Supreme Court has given its blessing to birth tourism, it's probably worth revisiting this story from 2019.
A Chinese national named Dongyuan Li ran a company called You Win USA Vacation Services that helped pregnant Chinese women travel to the U.S. to give birth so their children would get citizenship. She advertised having served more than 500 customers, charged each between $40,000 and $80,000, used 20 apartments in Irvine to house the mothers, and took in $3 million in wire transfers from China in two years.
Customers were coached to lie on their visa applications and at the U.S. consulate interview in China, claiming they'd stay only two weeks when they actually planned to stay up to three months to give birth. They were told to come early in pregnancy and were coached on how to conceal their pregnancies from customs.
You Win's marketing pitch was that giving birth in the U.S. meant "13 years of free education," "less pollution," "an easier way for the whole family to immigrate to the United States," and "priority for jobs in U.S. government, public companies, and large corporations."
What could possibly go wrong by constitutionalizing the incentive driving these schemes?
Dongyuan Li pleaded guilty to federal charges for the scam in 2019 and was sentenced to 10 months in prison. Li's operation was exactly the type of threat that needs to be dealt with harshly, and as Trump pointed out in a social media post reacting to the SCOTUS ruling, Congress needs to enact more powerful laws to deal with the situation.
The Supreme Court ruling may not have gone the way many wanted it to, but that doesn’t mean nothing can be done. Let’s roll, DOJ.
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