Trump Administration Takes Action Against Birth Tourism

President Trump, alongside United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, participated in a roundtable discussion on American mining at the State Department in Washington, D.C., on August 7, 2026. The State Department recently announced the creation of a task force aimed at ending ‘birth tourism,’ which involves traveling to the U.S. to give birth and claim citizenship for the child. This action is part of President Trump’s broader efforts to challenge birthright citizenship, which currently grants American citizenship to babies born in the United States.

The State Department stated, ‘As President Trump has made clear, citizenship is not a commodity to be acquired through the calculated exploitation of U.S. immigration laws.’ To address this, the department is collaborating with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to safeguard the U.S. immigration system’s integrity.

The formation of this task force follows President Trump’s signing of two executive orders on August 6, targeting birthright citizenship. These moves came after the Supreme Court invalidated Trump’s earlier efforts to limit citizenship for U.S.-born babies on June 30.

The Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force has a global mandate to review the activity of visa holders, aiming to detect and address instances of birth tourism. The task force plans to revoke the visas of individuals involved and disrupt networks profiting from this practice. The State Department noted that it is actively gathering and analyzing information from various federal agencies, including DHS, to identify potential birth tourism cases.

As of the announcement, the task force has already revoked over 600 visas linked to birth tourism. Trump’s second executive order on this issue, titled ‘Ending Birth Tourism,’ delegates authority to the Secretary of State and Secretary of Homeland Security to put an end to the practice.

The order describes ‘birth tourism’ as entering the U.S. with a nonimmigrant visa to give birth or attempting to assist someone in doing so. The other executive order, ‘Continuing To Protect The Meaning And Value Of American Citizenship,’ outlines specific scenarios where birthright citizenship does not apply, although the details are not exhaustive.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which won a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration regarding this issue, criticized the new executive orders. The ACLU has asked a federal judge in New Hampshire for clarity to ensure the citizenship rights of babies covered by the lawsuit remain secure despite the new orders.