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.
Never heard of maternity hotels. Learn something new on FR every day.
No more anchor babies.
Life begins at conception so the babies are foreign. Guess this is another reason libs are so bent on claiming they’re nothing but blobs of cells until they pass through the birth canal and POOF! magically turn into little humans.
That’s why we should take them in and raise them American, but mom & dad go home.
Or change the rules.
Blood is thicker than water.
The fact that they fraudulently received and paid the delivery at indigent prices shows they have no respect whatsoever for American citizens and taxpayers.
A convention of states could end up shipping straight white males to death camps as part of the new constitution—no thanks!
BRAVO!!!
Decades overdue.
Of course, if automatic citizenship for being born in the US is eliminated, the problem goes away.
Friends foes, tourists, spies, terrorists, doesn't matter.
It's irrational to assume that was the Founders' intent.
That judicial overreach decision has got to go!
It's totally the exclusive power of the Legislature!
Unfortunately, that's exactly what we are. "Thank you Obama!"
And anyone who thinks the Chinese government isn’t encouraging this has their head in the sand.
Yep. Calling for a Convention of States is risky business. But as of today, the GOP controls roughly 2/3 of the state legislatures. So anything that comes out of a Convention would probably be pretty reasonable.
But as more and more illegals flood in, control will change. So it’s either now or never.
“under the jurisdiction of” is defined in US code. Fix it there.
So are Russians.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/birth-tourism-brings-russian-baby-boom-miami-n836121
“’under the jurisdiction of’ is defined in US code. Fix it there”
If mom can be arrested for being a drug mule or any other crime such as income tax evasion or illegal entry in the USA, she’s under the jurisdiction of the US.
It takes a Constitutional amendment.
A DACA II amnesty should only be effective upon ratification.
A two-week addition to the DACA delay date would be added for each state ratification.
Republican-run states could wait until Democratic-run states have ratified just so Democratic legislatures would have to ratify ASAP.
If the Senate Democrats refuse to play ball, they’ll feel Hispanic heat fast.
“the Founders’ intent”
Amendment XIV was prepared by the Republican Reconstruction era Senate.
“intent”
The intent was solely to ensure the offspring of American black slaves would be US citizens and could vote Republican.
“If mom can be arrested for being a drug mule or any other crime such as income tax evasion or illegal entry in the USA, she’s under the jurisdiction of the US.”
So says you, but it is defined here”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/31/515.329
and here:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/31/515.330
So the statute can be revised.
He is correct. Those rules define the "person" who is under the jurisdiction. Remove someone from that and you make them not under the jurisdiction, which means not subject to our laws.
By their own words, the drafters of the 14th amendment did not intend that it would convey citizenship to foreigners. The children of foreigners here illegally are themselves illegal foreigners.
Being arrested doesn't make you "subject to the jurisdiction". You have to be "subject to the jurisdiction" to be arrested. What the phrase means is subject to the law. People who are not subject to the jurisdiction have some form of immunity, or are otherwise not bound by our law. Mainly, diplomatic immunity and invading soldiers.
"By their own words, the drafters of the 14th amendment did not intend that it would convey citizenship to foreigners."
By the words of the 14th (and the pre-existing law) being born here makes one a citizen.
"The children of foreigners here illegally are themselves illegal foreigners."
Unless they are born here, in which case they are citizens.
Sic em Donald.
Only the IRS is allowed to steal taxpayer money, these Chinese need to step off.
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