Now Reading: US revokes over 600 visas in birth tourism crackdown
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US revokes over 600 visas in birth tourism crackdown
The US State Department has revoked more than 600 visas as part of a crackdown on birth tourism, where pregnant women travel to America to give birth and gain citizenship for their…
The Story in Brief
The US State Department has revoked more than 600 visas as part of a crackdown on birth tourism, where pregnant women travel to America to give birth and gain citizenship for their child. Officials have set up a Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force to identify visa holders who travelled for this purpose and the facilitators who helped them. The move targets a practice critics call a loophole in the US Constitution's birthright citizenship clause.
The task force is reviewing visa applications and past approvals to detect fraud. The US government did not specify which nationalities were most affected. Birth tourism has been a contentious issue, with some estimating tens of thousands of babies born each year to non-resident mothers in the US.
The Indian Opinion
The 'anchor baby' narrative gets spun both ways. Some Indian families see US citizenship as a safety net; American critics call it visa fraud. Neither side admits the blurred line between seeking better medical care and gaming the system. The real test is how many of those 600-plus individuals were Indian, and whether India's own medical tourism push will face reciprocal scrutiny.
Source: ndtv.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
