Important Takeaways:

• It’s a practice that it dubbed “concerning,” not “not illegal,” unlike another underground industry in the state, where Chinese nationals work with “baby brokers” to bring pregnant Chinese women into the country so their babies are born U.S. citizens, according to the report.
• When wealthy Chinese couples “rent a womb,” and pay an American woman to be the surrogate, the resulting child is automatically a U.S. citizen, even if the family immediately returns to China.
• Acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Joseph McNally told the outlet the practice is gravely concerning, and pointed to a case in Irvine where a baby born to a Chinese national and ended up joining to Chinese military but still had a U.S. passport.
• “That provides a real national security asset to China. And a real problem to the United States,” McNally said.
• Clients pay around $200,000 to do the surrogacy process in the U.S., and roughly $70,000 goes to the surrogate, according to the report.
• The Heritage Foundation released a report on this very practice in 2024 called: “The New Face of Birth Tourism: Chinese Nationals, American Surrogates, and Birthright Citizenship.” The report notes that China’s now-ended one-child policy and its resulting societal impacts, combined with the fact that surrogacy is illegal in China, could be contributing to Chinese nationals’ use of the American surrogacy industry to create a family.
• Officials told Entin that illegal Chinese birthing agencies will organize trips to California and charge at least $100,000 and that couples are often housed in luxury apartments and mansions in the suburbs of Los Angeles, which neighbors call “baby farms.” California hotels and motels have also reported seeing many Chinese pregnant women, and say some would come and stay for months before giving birth.
• McNally told Entin this “system” has led to the births of at least 30,000 Chinese babies into U.S. citizenship.
• “These were criminal enterprises that operated here in the United States and also people in China who would recruit,” McNally said. “The organizers here had contacts at hospitals and had contacts there. It was an industry. The organizers of these schemes were responsible for the birth tourism of thousands of babies. They had a system in place.”

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