Researcher: Up to 300,000 Children Born to Birth Tourists
2nd September 2026
“The best estimate we have made at the Center for Immigration Studies of the possible number of births to tourists is 20,000 to 26,000 a year, though that estimate is based on data from 2016 and 2017,” Steven Camarota, the center’s research director, told a House Oversight Committee task force hearing led by Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas.
“Some might think the number is small relative to the overall number of births in the U.S. annually; however, the effect is cumulative. Assuming the numbers we estimated in the past continued, some 200,000 to 300,000 children were born to birth tourists over the last decade — hardly a trivial number.”
The testimony comes weeks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the State and Homeland Security departments to take further action against birth tourism, defined by the administration as foreign nationals entering the country on nonimmigrant visas to give birth on U.S. soil.