Born in the USA? China targeted in America’s birthright citizenship fight

Protester Hannah Liu holds a sign in support of birthright citizenship outside the US Supreme Court in May, 2025.

Photo: AP The US Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday on birthright citizenship, with Chinese nationals at the centre of disputed claims of abuse amplified by US President Donald Trump’s immigration campaign. “Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America.

It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!” Trump wrote on social media on Monday.

The president’s comments echo assertions about so-called birth tourism, which framed much of the conversation at a hearing on birthright citizenship on Capitol Hill in March.

While undocumented immigration has long been central to the debate, China has become an increasing focus in some political and policy arguments.

At the congressional hearing, witness Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, made the extraordinary claim that there were roughly one million “US citizens who are being raised in the People’s Republic of China today”.

Legal experts, however, said these claims are rooted in “fearmongering” and not supported by credible data or evidence of risk.

US President Donald Trump signs an executive order on birthright citizenship in the Oval Office in January, 2025.

Photo: AP While birth tourism exists, there are no official figures on the practice, and available data suggests it is rare.

The National Centre for Health Statistics recorded 27,476 births to Chinese-born mothers in 2023, out of 852,470 births to foreign-born mothers and 3.7 million births overall, of which only 113 were to non-US residents from China.

By contrast, in 2018, these numbers were slightly higher, with 3.9 million births overall, of which 267 were to non-US residents from China.

The data suggests that most of the births to foreign-born mothers were to actual immigrants and not “tourists”, said Jennifer Van Hook, professor of sociology and demography at Penn State. “Births to non-US resident foreign-born mothers amount to about 0.23 per cent of all births in the US, and births to non-US resident Chinese-born mothers amount to about 0.003 per cent of all US births.” The origins of birthright citizenship trace back to a case involving China.

Legal scholars said the case of United States v.

Wong Kim Ark established the moder

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