Wealthy Chinese couples paying $120,000 for American surrogates to increase their children's chances of getting into an Ivy League school

Chinese couples are paying $120,000-$140,000 to have their children born through American surrogates

With the fourteenth amendment, all children born on U.S. soil are automatically citizens

Since surrogacy is illegal in China, this is one of the only options for mothers who want to have biological children but can't carry to term

Wealthy Chinese couples are outsourcing their pregnancies to American women for upwards of $120,000 in order to secure citizenship for their children - and a shot at an Ivy League education.



Jennifer Garcia, case coordinator at California-based surrogacy service Extraordinary Conceptions, says about 55 per cent of her clients are Chinese.



'I've heard Harvard mentioned, Yale, Princeton. They just want them to come here and get a great education,' Ms Garcia told Today, 'and by them being a United States citizen they're not going to have a problem to come back and get accepted to those colleges.'



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Happy family: Linda (left) and her husband are one of the many Chinese couples paying American surrogates to have their babies, a process which can cost upwards of $120,000 Chinese-American: One surrogacy agency reports that 55 per cent of their clientele are Chinese nationals. Above, Linda and her husband's American born baby

All this is possible thanks to the fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees citizenship to any child born on American soil.



Surrogacy also allows parents to 'design' their babies.



For mothers whose eggs are unusable, parents can chose a surrogate with specific physical traits.



Garcia says tall, blonde women are popular among her Chinese clients.



Jennifer Garcia is a case coordinator at surrogacy agency Extraordinary Conceptions. She says that many Chinese are turning to American surrogacy as a way to increase the odds of getting into an Ivy League school

Parents can also chose the baby's gender, a big perk for Chinese parents who generally prefer boys due to the country's one-child policy.



Surrogacy is also a way to get around that one-child policy. Some Chinese who already have a child of their own are turning to surrogacy as a way to grow their family without drawing the ire of the Communist Party.



While having a baby through surrogacy is still a violation of the one-child rule, the government is having trouble enforcing the rule.



When the baby is finally born, most agencies work to secure American birth certificates, social security cards and passports for the bi-national infant before their leave the country.



Altogether, Ms Garcia estimates that it costs anywhere from $120,000-$140,000 for Chinese couples to have an American surrogate baby, meaning it's still only an option for the very wealthiest.



Which explains another reason why Chinese are turning to American surrogates specifically as opposed to surrogates in other countries.



Some wealthy Chinese fear they will be targeted if there was ever social unrest in the country again.



They believe an American baby will give them a way out of the country. Americans can apply for green cards for their parents once they turn 21.



But for many Chinese, American surrogacy isn't about citizenship options - it's a shot at parenthood for those who can't have children.



Parenthood: Surrogacy is illegal in China, so after Linda figured out that she couldn't have a child herself - American surrogacy was one of the only options

Since surrogacy is illegal in China, infertile Chinese don't have many options for having a biological child.



A Chinese woman named Linda had a disease four years ago which resulted in her loss of fertility.



Linda and her husband then decided to turn to U.S. surrogacy and now have a child of their own.



'Without her, we can't get our baby,' Linda said of her surrogate.



Some of the American women who have served as surrogates talk about feeling 'fulfilled' in giving a child to a couple who wouldn't have had one otherwise given their country's strict population-control.



'I could not live me life without my three children and the thought of giving that to somebody else is really the main reason why I did it,' a surrogate named Janice said.

