After the Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump in his effort to end birthright citizenship, the U.S. Department of Justice said it will now prioritize prosecutions of birth tourism: travelers coming to the U.S. for the sole purpose of giving birth so their children are American citizen s. Hours after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Tuesday to uphold birthright citizenship, the DOJ circulated a memo directing U.S. attorneys to work with the Department of Homeland Security “to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of birth tourism schemes.” “Regrettably, the American system is exploited each year by thousands of foreigners who travel to the United States under false pretenses to give birth and secure citizenship for their child,” the memo from Deputy Attorney General Colin McDonald reads. While it is not a crime for a non-citizen to give birth in the U.S., lying on a visa application about the purpose of a visit does already constitute fraud. “From our standpoint, it’s focusing on what is a problem,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said when asked about the push in an unrelated news conference Thursday. “What we have to do as the Department of Justice is make sure our agents, our HSI agents that we work with, and the FBI are focused on stopping that. And that’s what we’re going to do.” “Looking at the data, it’s just unclear that there is a need for enhanced investigations or prosecutions,” said San Diego attorney Andrew Nietor, who practices both immigration law and in federal court, which he says has seen immigration cases skyrocket in the past year.   “The Department of Justice has only so many resources. They only have so many attorneys, so many investigators,” Nietor said. “And if they’re being mandated by D.C. to, you know, focus on these immigration cases, it just means that they have less people to monitor drug importation cases, and gang cases, and extortion cases. It’s a simple question of math.” Last month, researchers at Penn State estimated that birth tourism accounts for fewer than 0.3% of all U.S. births, ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 each year from 2014 to 2024. The researchers found that the majority of those births were to Hispanic mothers, particularly Mexican women, who had above average levels of education. That’s in contrast with a stereotype that birth tourism is “driven by wealthy Asian families or low-income Hispanic families attempting to access public benefits,” the researchers wrote. “We’ll take care of the birthright citizenship because that was, that was not meant for rich people from other countries. It was meant for – actually, it was meant for the babies of slaves,” Trump said Tuesday. “It wasn’t meant for rich people from China that came over in Gulfstreams.” It’s unclear exactly how the crackdown will play out beyond an unspecified promise in the DOJ memo of “resources to assist.” It’s also unclear how the effort will play out in border communities like San Diego, which sees thousands of people travel between the U.S. and Mexico every day. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California declined to comment. “If you live in Mexico and you have the opportunity to work in the U.S., it’s a different kind of life,” said Manuela, who lives in Baja California and last year considered having her baby in San Diego before deciding against it. “Everybody tries to have the best option for their kids.” Manuela said it would have cost her about $12,000 in cash and she sold her car in order to afford it, but chose to give birth in Tijuana instead, though she said she knows somewhere between 20 and 25 Mexican families that have had children in the U.S. “We don’t want to lose our visa or our SENTRI,” she said. “It was hard for us because it was kind of a dream.” The DOJ memo highlighted three separate prosecutions of people sentenced to prison after they were convicted of running companies that charged clients in exchange for helping them give birth in the U.S. When asked if the focus would be on individuals who give birth or companies, the DOJ declined to comment further. But the memo says the DOJ “will investigate and hold accountable those who engage in this unlawful conduct, as well as those who solicit and sell these criminal services to others.” ...read more read less