Posted on 01/10/2018 7:24:33 AM PST by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Southern California apartment complexes that doubled as "maternity hotels" for Chinese women who want made-in-America babies were raided early Tuesday, capping an unprecedented federal sting operation, officials said.
NBC News was on the scene as Homeland Security agents swept into The Carlyle, a luxury property in Irvine, California, which housed pregnant women and new moms who allegedly forked over $40,000 to $80,000 to give birth in the United States.
"I am doing this for the education of the next generation," one of the women told NBC News.
None of the women were arrested; they are being treated as material witnesses, and paramedics were on hand in case any of them went into labor during the sweep.
Instead, the investigation was aimed at ringleaders who pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars tax-free to help Chinese nationals obtain visas and then pamper them until they delivered in an American hospital at a discount, court papers show.
"It's not necessarily illegal to come here to have the baby, but if you lie about your reasons for coming here, that's visa fraud," said Claude Arnold, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations for Los Angeles.
All told, the feds raided 20 locations in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties, targeting three competing birth tourism schemes, officials said. The suspected operators have not been charged but are being questioned.
The organizers who allegedly ran the Carlyle site, Chao Chen and Dong Li, used a website to drum up business, touting the benefits of a child with U.S. citizenship: 13 years of free education, low-cost college financial aid, less pollution, and a path for the entire family to emigrate when the child becomes an adult.
IMAGE: Website allegedly used to recruit Chinese women to come to the U.S. to have their babies
Image from a website that federal authorities say was used to recruit Chinese women to come to the U.S. to have their babies. youyunmeiguo
Clients were counseled on what lies to tell to obtain a tourist visa; how to fly through Hawaii, Las Vegas or Korea to avoid suspicious immigration officers at Los Angeles International Airport; and how to disguise their pregnancy in transit, according to search warrant affidavit unsealed Tuesday.
The women were then set up at the Carlyle, which charges about $3,000 a month for a two-bedroom apartment and features amenities including private balconies, a resort-style pool, and cabanas with flat-screen televisions.
A neighbor, Linda Trust, told NBC News she did find it strange that she had seen a forklift deliver a huge pile of diapers to the buildings but had never seen a baby.
The women's handlers provided transportation for doctor visits and trips to restaurants and shops, the court papers say. An agent tailing one of the suspects followed them to Target and Babies R Us.
They were funneled to several Orange County hospitals to deliver, but they didn't pay full price — approximately $25,000 — for medical services, officials said. Instead, they got reduced rates for the indigent, ranging from nothing to $4,000, the court papers say.
That translated into big losses for the hospitals. More than 400 babies linked to the scheme were born at just one facility in a two-year period, investigators said.
The investigators discovered that the parents of one baby born in April 2014 who paid the hospital just $4,000 were spending money at the Wynn Las Vegas Hotel, Rolex and Louis Vuitton, using an account with almost a quarter of a million dollars in it.
The fraud, authorities say, went beyond the visas.
Li didn't file a U.S. tax return and Chen didn't declare hundreds of thousands of dollars in proceeds, the affidavit says. In addition, Chen and his wife, Jie Zhu committed marriage fraud, pretending to be divorced so they could get "green-card" marriages in the U.S., the feds charged.
Efforts to reach Chen, Zhu and Li by phone were unsuccessful. It was not clear if they have retained legal counsel.
The phenomenon of foreigners coming to the U.S. to have babies is not new but appears to be growing. One study found that 40,000 children a year are born to women here on a travel visa, the affidavit notes.
IMAGE: Image from a website that federal authorities say was used to recruit Chinese women to come to the U.S. to have their babies.
Tuesday's crackdown marked the first large-scale federal probe of birth-tourism kingpins in the continental U.S.
In addition to the operation at the Carlyle, the feds zeroed in on two other alleged schemes.
Wen Rui Deng, Li Yan Lang and Wen Shan Sun were accused of charging women $10,000 to $25,000 to put them up at the Pheasant Ridge apartments in Rowland Heights, where the "one dragon service" included baby nurses, the court papers say.
A company called USA Happy Baby, run by Michael Wei Yueh Liu and Jing Dong, set up at The Reserves apartments in Rancho Cucamonga, authorities charged.
The probe into the Carlyle started in June 2014 when the Irvine Police Department received an anonymous tip about the scheme that was turned over to Homeland Security. Separately, U.S. Customs and Immigration Services received a similar tip. IMAGE: Website allegedly used to recruit Chinese women to come to the U.S. to have their babies Image from a website that federal authorities say was used to recruit Chinese women to come to the U.S. to have their babies.
An agent posed as a client who wanted to arrange for his cousin to give birth in America, and got Chen to spill the details of the scheme — from how his China-based employees would "prep" the woman for her consulate interview to why she should not fly straight to LA.
"I don't do it because it's too risky," he said. "That's because 90 percent of the work is already done before they come over, and if they get sent back on the same plane, then I'm the one to blame for it."
The investigators went through Li's trash, examined hospital records, followed the suspects and their clients on a trip to a Chinese restaurant and and combed through bank records.
At one point, Chen was caught on tape fretting to the undercover that the government might realize he was not paying taxes he owed on money he collected in China.
"I do file taxes but there are so any things that I can't explain clearly," he said.
Hmmmmm... if you say so.
I have not heard a single Mexican sperm donor or recipient, who when about to be deported with the litter, argue that the "family" must stay together, as the are bussed off to Meh-ji-co.
That's not a rewarding way to game our pathetic immigration system (according our incompetent judiciary.)
So no, blood is not thicker etc....
Exactly the same.
Speaking for myself, DACAs are not citizens; they are not even legal residents. They have broken immigration laws which are STILL VALID
The moron Dimcrats won't even accept the notion that our immigration laws still exist.
I am still puzzling over our federal judges, who believe that theirs is a private playground that they can enforce, ignore or redefine at will.
When were they granted that power? How?
Their latest power grab is declaring that if an existing law has been ignored too long, the can ignore it, and, further, it should be ignored by citizens generally, and by elected criminals, particularly, at all levels of government.
THAT HAS GOT TO STOP!
Being born here and...
So illegals on US soil are "subject to the jurisdiction"? I don't believe they are, or entitled to Constitutional rights for that matter. They should be treated more as un-uniformed invaders.
Liberal courts may have extended those protections, hell, they also gave us Wickard and Roe. That really doesn't ake it right or even Constitutional unless one concedes that the Court is the final word on the matter. I don't believe that was the founders intent if we are to have three co-equal branches.
In any case, subject to... can be defined to exclude those not here with our permission and those born here to such can retain their fathers or mothers citizenship.
Appreciate the exchange.
End it now!
Ditto all that!
Wonder if there is any Virginity Hotels?
So you believe the child of an illegal alien has immunity from the law? They can commit crimes and not be punished? Really? Because that's what not being "under the jurisdiction" means. It means not subject to the law.
"Liberal courts may have extended those protections..."
This has nothing to do with liberal courts. It's a misunderstanding of the words, "under the jurisdiction". But they mean exactly what they sound like they mean.
Saying one is subject to the jurisdiction doesn't convey rights. Just the opposite. It says one is subject to the power of the law. One must obey the law, or suffer the consequences. That's why the inverse, someone not subject to the jurisdiction, is someone with legal immunity. Like a diplomat. Including the condition of "subject to the jurisdiction" in the 14th simply excludes people with diplomatic immunity, invading soldiers, and Indians on their own territories. If you're one of those and give birth on the soil your child is not a citizen. But if you aren't, it is. There is no legal dispute about what that term means.
No, not really. That isn't what I said. I didn't even say "child". I asked if a Mexican who just drug himself out of the Rio Grande on the north side is "subject to the jurisdiction of".
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