Ken Paxton secures closure of Texas birth tourism center that delivered over 1,000 babies

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has successfully secured the closure of a birth tourism center in the Houston area which he said had taken responsibility for “1,000+ American-born babies.”

“I will do everything in my power to stop foreign nationals from unlawfully exploiting our immigration system through the scam of ‘birth tourism.’ This operation helped Chinese foreign nationals come to Texas to evade our laws. Now, we have shut it down,” said Paxton.

Paxton filed a lawsuit against the De’Ai Postpartum Care Center in April for “unlawfully facilitating the invasion of Chinese nationals into Texas for the sole purpose of birthing children and obtaining ‘birthright citizenship’ in a manner that violates Texas law, including the Texas Penal Code.”

A press release from Paxton’s office at the time said that the center “brags that it is responsible for ‘1,000+ American-born babies,’” and that it marketed its services primarily to Chinese clients through Chinese social media platforms. The center operated at least four properties around the Houston area and typically hosted multiple families at a time at each property.

The company coached clients on how to navigate immigration procedures and evade immigration laws for the purposes of coming to the US to deliver a child, including concealing that the primary reason they are traveling to the US is to give birth.

“Attorney General Paxton has now successfully shut down the operation. The Center will cease its operations and stop facilitating births, including stopping the practice of coaching foreign nationals on how to evade immigration laws to enter the United States for the purpose of giving birth.”