EXCLUSIVE: GOP Rep. Goes After Loophole Allowing Chinese To Abuse Birthright Citizenship In Northern Mariana Island

Republican Wisconsin Rep. Tom Tiffany asked Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) Kristi Noem to end a loophole that allows Chinese nationals to visit the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a US territory, without a visa, in a letter exclusively shared with the Daily Caller.

Specifically, Tiffany requested that Noem take steps to end the January 2024 rule called the “Guam-Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) Visa Waiver Program Automation and Electronic Travel Authorization; Creation of CNMI Economic Vitality & Security Travel Authorization Program (EVS-TAP).”

The Biden-era rule continues an Obama program which allowed “‘categorical’ parole” to Chinese nationals to travel to CNMI, according to Tiffany.

As a result of the program, he wrote, Chinese citizens “were able to sidestep the legal requirement that they first obtain a tourist visa before entering the CNMI.”

The loophole, Tiffany continued, has led to a “troubling rise in ‘birth tourism.’”

In the letter, the representative pointed out that births to foreign visitors in CNMI jumped from under 10 in 2009 to nearly 600 in 2018.

The phenomenon of foreign nationals giving birth in the islands’ capital city of Saipan became so common “that such births exceeded the number of births to legal U.S. residents there in recent years,” Tiffany wrote.

The birth tourism phenomenon has become a cottage industry. It’s given rise to a criminal human trafficking network, Tiffany wrote in the letter. The DOJ prosecuted U.S./Taiwanese dual citizen Richard Peng from 2016 to 2017 after his involvement in an underground birth tourism network which Chinese women paid thousands of dollars to for packages offering to let them give birth on US soil. Peng pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a six-month prison term. He also received one year of supervised release and a $2,000 fine.

The loophole also allows children of foreign nationals who become citizens to petition for their parents to then secure green cards, according to Tiffany.

In addition to the emboldening of crime syndicates, the congressman also noted that the loophole instituted a national security threat. (RELATED: Trump Administration Plans To Take Birthright Citizenship Fight All The Way To SCOTUS)

“Set aside the birthright citizenship part of it, it’s allowing people to gain citizenship that are coming from communist China,” Tiffany told the Daily Caller.

He pointed to current CIA head John Ratcliffe‘s 2020 statements in which he called Communist China “a greater national security threat to the U.S. than any other nation.”

“In short, nationals of the PRC should be required to meet the same standard to visit the CNMI that they must meet to visit any other part of the United States,” Tiffany’s letter concluded.

2025.02.12 dhs cnmi ltr final[86] (2) by robert on Scribd

President Trump issued an executive order to end birthright citizenship on his first day in office. However, a judge swiftly blocked the order, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.” The order’s language also left a potential loophole for U.S. women serving as surrogates for the children of foreigners, according to a report from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Republican Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs lauded Trump’s order, telling the Caller it was “the right thing to do.” However, the congressman also rang the alarm on the CNMI loophole. 

“What’s happening in Northern Mariana is particularly vexing because it is not well known and abused widely,” he told the Caller.

He also said that CNMI is not the only place that Chinese citizens are targeting for “maternity tourism.”