American citizenship is supposed to mean something. Apparently, for years, all it took was a plane ticket and a maternity bag.
Fox News congressional correspondent Bill Melugin recently flagged a story that didn't get nearly enough attention.
NEW: Four GOP Senators, @BasedMikeLee, @JohnCornyn, @SenRickScott, & @BillCassidy, have penned a letter to DHS Secretary Mullin, urging him to close a Biden era “birth tourism” loophole that allows Chinese nationals to visit the Northern Mariana Islands for 14 days without a… pic.twitter.com/ye9Bpr6piQ
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) April 22, 2026
Senators Mike Lee, Rick Scott, John Cornyn, and Bill Cassidy sent a letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum urging the termination of a Biden-era visa policy that allows Chinese nationals to enter the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands without a visa.
Most Americans couldn't find the Northern Mariana Islands on a map. But they need to know what's been happening there.
The Northern Mariana Islands, known as the CNMI, are a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean. Babies born there are U.S. citizens. That fact turned Saipan, the territory's capital, into what senators are calling a citizenship factory.
In 2009, President Obama created a program that allowed Chinese nationals to visit the CNMI without a tourist visa and without the vetting that comes with one.
That opened the door to what senators called “a veritable cottage industry” of Chinese nationals flying to the islands to give birth and get U.S. citizenship for their children.
Then Biden made it worse.
In its final weeks, the Biden administration expanded the program, allowing citizens of mainland China to visit the islands without a visa for up to 14 days. That program is called EVS-TAP.
The numbers tell the story.
Births to tourists on the island peaked at 581 in 2018. China-watchers estimate about 1,000 companies now offer birth tourism packages to the Northern Mariana Islands and other U.S. territories.
Some estimates suggest as many as 1.5 million American babies have been born through these programs and are now being raised in China by Chinese parents.
Read that again. A million and a half people could be walking around China right now holding U.S. passports they got by gaming our system.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly put it plainly: “Uninhibited birth tourism poses a tremendous cost to taxpayers and threatens our national security.”
The security angle is what really should alarm people.
Experts warn that the program could allow China to get operatives in place near sensitive U.S. military facilities, which are increasingly being expanded and upgraded across the region.
The CNMI sits just one boat ride from Guam, a major U.S. military base. Chinese nationals have already been convicted of trafficking methamphetamine into the CNMI and smuggling people by boat toward military installations.
This isn't theoretical. It's already happened.
The senators pushing to kill EVS-TAP include Mullin himself, who's now the one who has to act.
Mullin co-signed a letter demanding the program's closure when he was still in the Senate. Trump then named him DHS Secretary.
So he's being asked to do exactly what he already said needed to be done. Now he just has to follow through.
Critics point out that tourism makes up a huge portion of the CNMI's economy and that some locals see Chinese birth tourists as a financial lifeline.
That's a real concern. But no struggling local economy justifies handing out U.S. passports to the children of a foreign adversary that's actively expanding its military and intelligence operations across the Pacific.
Nevada might seem far from a small Pacific island, but the principle hits home.
The Trump administration's State Department has been actively shutting down global birth tourism networks, including a scheme in West Africa involving more than 100 foreign nationals using fraudulent documents and visa fixers to obtain U.S. citizenship for their children, and more than 400 suspected cases traced through a U.S. embassy in Europe.
The Las Vegas metro area, home to thousands of Chinese nationals and one of the most internationally connected cities in the country, isn't immune to these schemes either.
U.S. citizenship shouldn't be a product you can buy with a plane ticket and a two-week vacation package. The senators are right to push. Now let's see if Mullin delivers.
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