President Donald Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship were weighed at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, but questions and answers in the critical case centered largely on matters of legal interpretation. During oral arguments, the Trump administration made only a passing reference to one of the chief threats facilitated by the current system of birthright citizenship: birth tourism.

According to Fox News, over 500 Chinese firms operate and offer birth tourism packages. Those hundreds of firms “facilitate people coming from the Chinese Communist Party to give birth here in the United States,” former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany reported. She recounted that former President Barack Obama played a key role in enabling the proliferation of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) birth tourism industry in the U.S. “What that could mean is one million new voters by 2030. Imagine that. Communist Party voters.”

In 2009, shortly after Obama assumed office, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established the Guam-Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) Visa Waiver Program, allowing Chinese nationals to visit the U.S. territories of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands without first obtaining a visa. The New York Post reported that over 1,000 Chinese firms facilitate birth tourism to U.S. territories in the Pacific and to the U.S. mainland. Over 1.5 million U.S. citizen children have been born to Chinese parents, who then take their children home to grow up under the rule of the CCP. Starting next year, many of those children will be eligible to vote in U.S. elections, including voting by overseas absentee ballot.

One company, called Global Baby 8, offers birth tourism “economy packages” starting at $14,000, ranging to the more luxurious “Supreme Type” package, which includes a luxury villa, personal escort, guided shopping trips, local tours, and a post-partum nanny — starting at $45,000. “Create beautiful memories while having an American baby,” Global Baby 8’s advertising promises. Having an expert handle the child’s citizenship paperwork costs an extra $1,000. “Our highly experienced visa specialists will craft a customized visa and entry plan just for you, ensuring a worry-free overseas birthing experience!”

CCP-linked business magnate Guojun Xuan ran and used Mark Surrogacy Investment, LLC, eventually having at least 26 U.S.-born children himself via surrogacy. According to Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer, author of the recent book “The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon,” CCP officials will pay surrogates upwards of $50,000 to carry and birth their children in the U.S. He cited the example of a wealthy CCP-connected individual who had over 100 U.S.-born children via surrogacy.

In China, state-sponsored magazines and commentary programs actually explain how the U.S. birthright citizenship mechanism works. “There is a certain irony there — the CCP officials are explaining constitutional rights to their own elite,” Schweizer quipped. “There are nationalist websites that talk about it. There is discussion about this in the Chinese media. There’s no condemnation of it.”

CCP officials aren’t the only ones taking advantage of birthright citizenship. According to a Pew Research Center report published Wednesday, nearly 10% of children born in the U.S. in recent years have been born to illegal immigrant or temporary-visa-holder mothers. In 1990, only about 3% of U.S. births were to illegal immigrant mothers; by 2006, that share had jumped to 9%. It took over a decade for the number of births in the U.S. to illegal immigrant mothers to decline, but that share had spiked again over the past six years, following former President Joe Biden’s policy of allowing approximately 12 million illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. in a four-year span.

Over the past 20 years, over five million children were born in the U.S. to illegal immigrant mothers. Of those, fewer than 700,000 had fathers who were either legal permanent residents or U.S. citizens themselves. Another Pew Research publication noted that the U.S. is one of only 33 countries in the world to automatically offer citizenship to children born within its borders. Of the 191 countries examined in the study, 156 will only grant a child citizenship if one or both of that child’s parents are citizens at the time of the child’s birth.

In addition to national security threats, birthright citizenship also allows for mass chain migration: once a U.S.-born child turns 21, he can apply for legal permanent residency for family members, including parents. “Unless the court upholds” Trump’s executive order, Fox News host Laura Ingraham warned, “there will be tens of millions of new citizens born to the illegal immigrants who are here, who will then be entitled to all our benefits, schools, healthcare, et cetera, including voting rights.”

Schweizer urged the Supreme Court to take action to defend U.S. citizenship. “If they come back and say that birthright citizenship is absolute — that if you are here, you are within the borders, you are allowed to do this — then we are in deep, deep, deep trouble,” he said. “This is a serious national security concern that really demands attention, and I’m hoping the court is going to be reasonable and recognize that the Constitution is not a suicide pact, that there should be the ability of the executive and the legislative branches to put limitations on what birthright citizenship really means.”