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posted by janrinok on Friday January 17 2020, @05:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the taking-the-piss dept.

WSJ runs this story (alternative MSN same text)

HONG KONG—Japanese citizen Midori Nishida was checking in to a flight in Hong Kong in November to visit her parents on Saipan, a U.S. island in the Pacific, when airline staff made an unusual demand. She had to take a pregnancy test if she wanted to board.

Ms. Nishida, 25 years old, was escorted to a public rest room and handed a strip to urinate on.

The test was part of the response of one airline, Hong Kong Express Airways, to immigration concerns in Saipan. The island has become a destination for women intending to give birth on U.S. territory, making their babies eligible for American citizenship. In 2018, more tourists than residents gave birth in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, in which Saipan is the largest island.

Pregnant foreigners aren't barred from entering the U.S., or from giving birth in U.S. territory. But immigration authorities can turn away visitors if they are found to be lying about their purpose of travel, or if they come to the U.S. planning to have a medical procedure, such as giving birth, but can't prove they have the funds to pay for it.

Airlines are required to take back passengers who are denied entry—an incentive to ensure that those who board their flights are likely to be deemed admissible to the U.S.

One would think the birth tourism was reaching crisis levels in Saipan; but TFA has a chart showing 582 births by tourists in 2018.

Heck, looks like even Trump's businesses are happy to oblige if the price is right.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Friday January 17 2020, @07:10PM (1 child)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Friday January 17 2020, @07:10PM (#944674)

    They said "The goal of strict immigration policies".

    The stupidest thing about these immigration debates is that people always seem to think the only options are "nobody gets in" and "give free citizenship, healthcare, and Big Macs to everybody who can hobble across this line in the desert".

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
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  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday January 17 2020, @10:17PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 17 2020, @10:17PM (#944763) Journal

    I mean, to be fair to them, I probbably count as radical. I wouldn't really put myself in the middle or center of the issue. Most middle-ground positions seem to lack any real convictions besides appeasing the "we're being invaded" side without articulating an actual ideology or meaningful goal to support the resulting centrist position. It tends to result in positions like "Enforce the laws we have"(which are mostly horrendously baseless) or "Lets set quotas to some smallish sounding number"

    I'm not fundamentally averse to compromise, conceptually, but it's also not gonna come into the conversation pre-compromised. I want to see a reality based argument for any border-related protection you want to persist.