WASHINGTON: The Trump administration on Thursday imposed new visa rules aimed at restricting “birth tourism,” in which women travel to the United States to give birth so their children can have US citizenship.
Applicants will be denied a tourist visa unless they can prove they must come to the US to give birth for medical reasons and they have money to pay for it — not just because they want their child to have a passport.
“Closing this glaring immigration loophole will combat these endemic abuses and ultimately protect the United States from the national security risks created by this practice,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. “It will also defend American taxpayers from having their hard-earned dollars siphoned away to finance the direct and downstream costs associated with birth tourism. The integrity of American citizenship must be protected.”
The practice of traveling to the US to give birth is fundamentally legal, although there are scattered cases of authorities arresting operators of birth tourism agencies for visa fraud or tax evasion. And women are often honest about their intentions when applying for visas and even show signed contracts with doctors and hospitals.
The State Department “does not believe that visiting the United States for the primary purpose of obtaining US citizenship for a child, by giving birth in the United States — an activity commonly referred to as ‘birth tourism’ — is a legitimate activity for pleasure or of a recreational nature,” according to the new rules, which were published Thursday in the Federal Register and take effect Friday.
While the new rules deal specifically with birth tourism aimed at wealthy immigrants coming largely from China and Russia, the Trump administration also has turned away pregnant women coming over the US-Mexico border as part of a broader immigration crackdown. Those women were initially part of a “vulnerable” group that included others like small children who were allowed in, while tens of thousands of other asylum seekers have been returned to Mexico to wait out their cases.
President Donald Trump’s administration has been restricting all forms of immigration, but Trump has been particularly plagued by the issue of birthright citizenship — anyone born in the US is considered a citizen, under the Constitution. The Republican president has railed against the practice and threatened to end it, but scholars and members of his administration have said it’s not so easy to do.
Regulating tourist visas for pregnant women is one way to get at the issue, but it raises questions about how officers would determine whether a woman is pregnant to begin with and whether a woman could get turned away by border officers who suspect she may be just by looking at her.
And critics of the new policy say it could put pregnant women at risk.
Consular officers don’t have the right to ask during visa interviews whether a woman is pregnant or intends to become so. But they would still have to determine whether a visa applicant would be coming to the US primarily to give birth.
Birth tourism is a lucrative business in both the US and abroad. Companies take out advertisements and charge up to $80,000 to facilitate the practice, offering hotel rooms and medical care. Many of the women travel from Russia and China to give birth in the US
The US has been cracking down on the practice since before Trump took office.
“An entire ‘birth tourism’ industry has evolved to assist pregnant women from other countries to come to the United States to obtain US citizenship for their children by giving birth in the United States, and thereby entitle their children to the benefits of US citizenship,” according to the State Department rules.
There are no figures on how many foreign women travel to the US specifically to give birth. The Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for stricter immigration laws, estimated that in 2012 about 36,000 foreign-born women gave birth in the US and then left the country.
“This rule will help eliminate the criminal activity associated with the birth tourism industry,” according to the rules. “The recent federal indictments describe birth tourism schemes in which foreign nationals applied for visitor visas to come to the United States and lied to consular officers about the duration of their trips, where they would stay, and their purpose of travel.”
US imposes visa rules for pregnant women on ‘birth tourism’
https://arab.news/jrf5e
US imposes visa rules for pregnant women on ‘birth tourism’
- Applicants will be denied a tourist visa unless they can prove they must come to give birth for medical reasons and have money to pay for it
- The practice of traveling to the US to give birth is fundamentally legal
Afghan data breach unmasked UK spies, special forces: reports
A UK official had accidentally leaked a document containing the names and details of almost 19,000 Afghans
LONDON: The details of more than 100 Britons, including spies and special forces personnel, were included in a massive data breach involving thousands of Afghans, UK media reported on Thursday.
The information was included in the mistakenly released spreadsheet, British newspapers reported, citing unnamed defense sources.
The leak was only revealed to the public earlier this week after a news blackout imposed by the previous Conservative government was finally lifted.
“It’s longstanding policy of successive governments to not comment on Special Forces,” a ministry of defense spokesperson said in a statement.
“We take the security of our personnel very seriously and personnel, particularly those in sensitive positions, always have appropriate measures in place to protect their security.”
But reports in the British media, including the Guardian newspaper and the BBC, said members of Britain’s intelligence service and special forces were among those listed on the spreadsheet.
Britain’s government disclosed on Tuesday that a UK official had accidentally leaked a document containing the names and details of almost 19,000 Afghans who had asked to be relocated to the UK.
It happened in February 2022, just six months after Taliban fighters seized Kabul, Labour’s Defense Secretary John Healey told parliament.
The breach and the resettlement plan to protect those involved from potential repercussions only came to light after a court-issued super-gag was lifted.
The nearly two-year-long court ban secured by the previous Conservative government prevented any media reporting of the leak.
In addition, parliament was not briefed and there was no public knowledge of the resettlement plan and the costs involved.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said that Tory ministers have “serious questions to answer” over the secret resettlement plan while parliamentary Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said that the affair raised “significant constitutional issues.”
Some 900 Afghans and 3,600 family members have since been brought to Britain or are in transit under the program known as the Afghan Response Route, at a cost of around £400 million ($535 million), Healey said.
Applications from 600 more people have also been accepted, bringing the estimated total cost of the scheme to £850 million.
They are among some 36,000 Afghans who have been accepted by Britain under different schemes since the August 2021 fall of Kabul.
Trump will visit Scotland, where his family has golf courses, and will talk trade with Starmer
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will head to Scotland next week, visiting areas where his family owns two golf courses and is opening a third, and will meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to discuss trade ahead of an official state visit to Britain in September.
Trump’s trip from July 25-29 will see him visit Turnberry, home to a historic golf course and hotel he bought in 2014, and Aberdeen, where one Trump golf course has operated since 2012 and a new one is set to open in August, the White House said Thursday.
During the trip, Trump plans to meet with Starmer to “refine” a previously announced trade deal, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Trump himself had previously said he’d be discussing trade with Starmer and said those talks would take place at “probably one of my properties” in Aberdeen, but the White House hadn’t previously announced the trip.
The White House hasn’t commented on whether the Republican president plans to golf while in Scotland, though he played his Turnberry course during his first term in 2018, ahead of traveling to Helsinki, Finland, for a high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The president’s son’s Eric and Donald Jr. are now running the family business, The Trump Organization, while their father is in the White House.
During her briefing with reporters, Leavitt also said Trump and first lady Melania Trump will travel to the United Kingdom from Sept. 17-19 and meet with King Charles.
That trip had already been confirmed by Buckingham Palace and will mark Trump’s second state visit to the United Kingdom after he first had one in 2019. No US president had previously been invited for a second state visit.
“He is honored and looking forward to meeting with his majesty, the king at Windsor Castle,” Leavitt said.
Trump’s first golf course near Aberdeen, International Golf Links Scotland, is set to host an event on the European tour, the Scottish Championship, from Aug. 7-10. It will be the first time the course has staged a European tour event, though it held a tournament on the seniors’ tour in 2023 and 2024 and will do so again this year, the week before the Scottish Championship.
Located on the Ayrshire coast, around 200 miles southwest of Aberdeen, Trump Turnberry is one of 10 courses on the rotation to host the British Open — the oldest of the four major championships in men’s golf — but hasn’t staged that event since 2009, before Trump bought the resort.
Ukraine offers its front line as test bed for foreign weapons
- Moroz said there has been strong interest in the scheme, but did not name any companies
- Ukraine is betting on a budding defense industry, fueled in part by foreign investment
WIESBADEN, Germany, : Ukraine will let foreign arms companies test out their latest weapons on the front line of its war against Russia’s invasion, Kyiv’s state-backed arms investment and procurement group Brave1 said on Thursday.
Under the “Test in Ukraine” scheme, companies would send their products to Ukraine, give some online training on how to use them, then wait for Ukrainian forces to try them out and send back reports, the group said in a statement.
“It gives us understanding of what technologies are available. It gives companies understanding of what is really working on the front line,” Artem Moroz, Brave1’s head of investor relations, told Reuters at a defense conference in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Moroz said there has been strong interest in the scheme, but did not name any companies that have signed on to use it and declined to go into more detail on how it would operate or what, if any, costs would be involved.
More than three years after their invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces are pressing a grinding offensive across the sprawling, more than 1,000-km (620-mile) front line and intensifying air strikes on Ukrainian cities.
Ukraine is betting on a budding defense industry, fueled in part by foreign investment, to fend off Russia’s bigger and better-armed war machine.
Brave1 — set up by the government in 2023 with an online hub where Ukrainian defense companies can seek investment, and also where Ukrainian military units can order up arms — had drawn up a list of the military technologies it wanted to test, Moroz added.
“We have a list of priorities. One of the top of those would be air defense, like new air defense capabilities, drone interceptors, AI-guided systems, all the solutions against gliding bombs,” he said.
Unmanned systems in the water and electronic profile systems on the ground are also on Ukraine’s list of priorities, as are advanced fire control systems or AI guidance to make howitzers more accurate.
French army leaves Senegal, ending military presence in west Africa
- France returned Camp Geille on Thursday, its largest base in the west African country, and its airfield at Dakar airport
- Senegalese chief of staff said handover marked “an important turning point” in the two countries’ military partnership
DAKAR: France on Thursday formally handed back its last two military bases in Senegal, leaving Paris with no permanent army camps in either west or central Africa.
Ending the French army’s 65 years in independent Senegal, the pull-out comes after similar withdrawals across the continent, with former colonies increasingly turning their backs on their former ruler.
The move comes as the Sahel region faces a growing jihadist conflict across Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger that is threatening the wider west African region.
A recent string of attacks this month in Mali included an assault on a town on the border with Senegal.
France returned Camp Geille, its largest base in the west African country, and its airfield at Dakar airport, in a ceremony attended by top French and Senegalese officials.
They included Senegalese chief of staff General Mbaye Cisse and General Pascal Ianni, the head of the French forces in Africa.
Cisse said the handover marked “an important turning point in the rich and long military journey of our two countries.”
He said the “new objectives” were aimed at “giving new content to the security partnership.”
Senegalese troops were working “to consolidate the numerous skills gained it its quest for strategic autonomy,” he added.
The general ended his speech with a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the French author of “The Little Prince,” who spent several months in Dakar: “For each ending there is always a new departure.”
Ianni said Paris was “reinventing partnerships in a dynamic Africa.”
“We have to do things differently, and we don’t need permanent bases to do so,” he said.
The French general however insisted that the pull-out “takes nothing away from the sacrifices made yesterday by our brothers-in-arms in Africa for our respective interests.”
Around 350 French soldiers, primarily tasked with conducting joint operations with the Senegalese army, are now leaving, marking the end of a three-month departure process that began in March.
After storming to victory in 2024 elections promising radical change, Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye demanded France withdraw troops from the country by 2025.
Unlike the leaders of other former colonies such as junta-run Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, however, Faye has insisted that Senegal will keep working with Paris.
Reinventing partnerships
Senegal was one of France’s first colonies in Africa.
After gaining independence in 1960, Senegal became one of France’s staunchest African allies, playing host to French troops throughout its modern history.
Faye’s predecessor, Macky Sall, continued that tradition.
However Faye, who ran on a ticket promising a clean break with the Sall era, has said that Senegal will treat France like any other foreign partner.
Pledging to make his country more self-sufficient, the president gave a deadline of the end of 2025 for all foreign armies to withdraw.
“Senegal is an independent country, it is a sovereign country, and sovereignty does not accept the presence of military bases in a sovereign country,” Faye said at the end of 2024.
He maintained nonetheless that France remained “an important partner for Senegal.”
Faye has also urged Paris to apologize for colonial atrocities, including the massacre on December 1, 1944, of dozens of African soldiers who had fought for France in World War II.
A lawmaker from the president’s ruling Pastef party, Guy Marius Sagna, hailed Thursday’s “end to the presence of the French occupying army.”
“Bravo to President Diomaye Faye!... Bravo to the patriots! Decolonization continues,” he told the press.
French former empire
With governments across Africa increasingly questioning the presence of French soldiers, Paris has closed or reduced numbers at bases across its former empire.
In February, Paris handed back its sole remaining base in Ivory Coast, ending decades of French presence at the site.
The month before, France turned over the Kossei base in Chad, its last military foothold in the unrest-hit Sahel region.
Coups in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali between 2020 and 2023 have swept military strongmen to power.
All have cut ties with France and turned to Russia instead for help in fighting the Sahel’s decade-long jihadist insurgency.
The Central African Republic, also a former French colony to which the Kremlin has sent mercenaries, has likewise demanded a French pull-out.
Meanwhile, the army has turned its base in Gabon into a camp shared with the central African nation focused on training.
Only the tiny Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti will play host to a permanent French army base following Thursday’s withdrawal.
France intends to make its base in Djibouti, home to some 1,500 people, its military headquarters for Africa.
Tourist magnet Barcelona to cut cruise ship capacity
- Spain’s second-largest city hosts one of the world’s busiest ports for cruise traffic
- Cruise passenger numbers grew by 20 percent between 2018 and 2024
BARCELONA: Barcelona unveiled on Thursday a plan to reduce the number of cruise passengers arriving at its port, part of a wider trend to combat overtourism in Europe’s most popular destinations.
The city of Barcelona and the port authority signed an agreement to reduce the number of cruise ship terminals from seven to five by 2030, cutting traveler capacity from 37,000 to 31,000.
Spain’s second-largest city hosts one of the world’s busiest ports for cruise traffic, having received 3.65 million such passengers in 2024, according to Barcelona’s Tourism Observatory.
Cruise passenger numbers grew by 20 percent between 2018 and 2024, Barcelona’s Socialist mayor Jaume Collboni said in a statement.
“For the first time in history, limits are being set on the growth of cruise ships in the city,” Collboni added.
The demolition of three existing cruise terminals and the construction of a new one will cost 185 million euros ($215 million), adding to previous investments since a first protocol was signed in 2018.
Tourism has helped drive the dynamic Spanish economy, making it the world’s second most-visited country with a record 94 million foreign visitors last year.
But the boom has fueled anger about unaffordable housing and concern that mass visitor numbers are changing the fabric of neighborhoods, sparking protests in tourism hotspots.
With its Mediterranean beaches and world-famous cultural landmarks such as the Sagrada Familia basilica, Barcelona is on the front line of mass tourism, receiving millions of visitors every year.
It announced last year a plan to scrap around 10,000 tourist rental apartments by 2028 in an attempt to ease local discontent.
Elsewhere in Europe, the popular Italian city of Venice introduced a charge for day visitors last year, while Greece is implementing a tax on cruise ships docking at its islands.
