Deborah Akinyosoye
The United States of America has vowed to withhold visa approval from Nigerians whose sole intent of travelling to the US is for the primary purpose of birth tourism.
The US Mission in Nigeria issued the warning yesterday in a post on its official X handle, saying the practice was not permitted in the US.
“We will deny your visa if we believe your primary purpose of travel is to give birth in the United States to get US citizenship for your child.
‘’This is not permitted. Using your visa to travel for the primary purpose of giving birth in the United States so that your child will have U.S. citizenship is not permitted.
‘’Consular officers will deny your visa application if they have reason to believe this is your intent,” the Mission said in the post.
Birth tourism, a practice that allows pregnant women to travel to another country for the purpose of giving birth, enables the mother to secure citizenship for her unborn child based on the country’s birthright citizenship law.
The practice is particularly attractive in countries that offer jus soli (right of soil) citizenship, meaning that a child born on the country’s territory automatically becomes a citizen regardless of the parents’ nationality or residency status.
The practice has come under scrutiny in recent times, especially in America where President Donald Trump signed an executive order at the start of his administration to end birthright citizenship for children whose parents are residing illegally in America, starting from February 2025.
The executive order has been a subject of legal battles since Trump assumed office in January.
On Friday, a federal judge issued a new nationwide block, stopping the Trump administration from ending the practice.
The ruling on Friday was the third court ruling blocking the birthright order nationwide since a key Supreme Court decision in June, which restricted the power of lower court judges to issue nationwide injunctions.
The states had argued Trump’s birthright citizenship order was blatantly unconstitutional and threatened millions of dollars for health insurance services that were contingent on citizenship status.
Delivering the new ruling, Judge Joseph Laplante said US citizenship “is the greatest privilege that exists in the world.”
Laplante wrote that he “has no difficulty concluding that the rapid adoption by executive order, without legislation and the attending national debate, of a new government policy of highly questionable constitutionality that would deny citizenship to many thousands of individuals previously granted citizenship under an indisputably longstanding policy, constitutes irreparable harm, and that all class representatives could suffer irreparable harm absent an injunction.”