Overview
- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 30, 2026 that the 14th Amendment continues to confer birthright citizenship to nearly everyone born in the United States.
- Hours after the decision, Colin McDonald of the DOJ’s Fraud Division issued a memo directing U.S. Attorneys and the Criminal Division to prioritize investigations of organized birth‑tourism operations.
- The memo instructs prosecutors to use existing statutes — including visa fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, identity theft and health‑care fraud — rather than seeking new constitutional changes.
- DOJ cited prior convictions from 2024, 2022 and 2020 to show how operators ran schemes that allegedly coached women to hide pregnancies, obtained fraudulent visas, and moved large international payments.
- Estimates of how many births result from short‑term visitors vary widely because the government does not track them, so analysts say prosecutions may rise but the overall scale and fiscal impact remain uncertain while President Trump pushes Congress for legislative change.