The debate over birthright citizenship is back in the national spotlight, and according to author and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer, the United States may have far less visibility into the issue than many Americans realize.
Appearing on Fox News' The Ingraham Angle following the Supreme Court's recent ruling involving birthright citizenship, Schweizer challenged claims that birth tourism is a rare phenomenon, pointing instead to figures he said come from the Chinese government itself.
Host Laura Ingraham cited a report from The Hill asserting that birth tourism schemes are uncommon before asking Schweizer directly whether that characterization was accurate.
“No,” Schweizer responded. “According to the Chinese government itself, they believe that every year, on average, since 2013, roughly 100,000 Chinese babies have been born in the United States. That is a government estimate from China. Yes. Research firms in China put that number sometimes even higher.”
Schweizer emphasized that the United States lacks comprehensive data to verify the true scale of the practice because federal agencies do not track the nationality of parents on birth certificates.
“The problem is our federal government doesn’t know. We don’t track this,” he said. “They don’t put on a birth certificate the nationality of the parents. So, that’s the inherent problem. We don’t know the scope of it, but China says it’s massive.”
If the Chinese government's estimates are accurate, Schweizer argued, more than one million people who obtained U.S. citizenship by birth have been raised in China over the past decade. Those figures have not been independently verified by the U.S. government, which Schweizer says underscores the broader concern: Washington cannot accurately measure a policy whose long-term consequences it does not fully track.
The issue has gained renewed attention as President Donald Trump continues pushing to end what his administration describes as the abuse of birthright citizenship through executive action and legal challenges. Supporters argue the Constitution was never intended to create a pathway for foreign nationals to obtain U.S. citizenship for their children simply by giving birth on American soil, particularly through organized birth tourism operations.
For many conservatives, the controversy is about more than immigration. It is about national sovereignty, protecting the integrity of American citizenship, and ensuring that immigration laws serve the interests of the United States—not foreign governments or those seeking to exploit legal loopholes. As the debate continues, calls for greater transparency and accountability are likely to remain at the center of the America First agenda.
