Although the Supreme Court reaffirmed that birthright citizenship is constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, there is the related issue of birth tourism. Unfortunately, the media tends to conflate birth tourism with birthright citizenship. Birth tourism is the practice of upper-income foreign women who game the immigration system to have a child on US soil so he or she is a US citizen.

In an article in The Hill, Dr. Merrill Matthews offers “Three Cheers for Trying to End Birth Tourism.” He was on my radio program recently to talk about his article. At about the same time, the U.S. House of Representatives put together a “Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses.” They recently held hearings in which the founder of “Have My Baby Miami” continually invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify.

Dr. Matthew’s first cheer is the executive order issued by President Trump to end the practice of birth tourism. His article documents the many birth-tourism packages in the country. The U.S. House hearing on the issue heard from one expert who provided estimates in the thousands of births to foreign born mothers who provided an overseas address on the birth certificate.

Dr. Matthew’s second cheer was for how the executive order is yet another attempt to stop corruption. Operators may promise citizenship, but often they fail to deliver on those promises.

Dr. Matthew’s third cheer is that fixing birth tourism could be a step toward much-needed immigration reform. Until now, the resistance to reform came from Americans who wanted to fix the border problem. That has occurred and may provide a way toward an honest debate about immigration.

Birth tourism is an issue that might open a discussion on the larger issue of immigration.