ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Federal agents just arrested scores of suspects tied to “You Win USA” and “USA Happy Baby,” a couple of birth tourism programs that brought hundreds of pregnant women from China into the United States — for the right cash price, that is — so they might deliver in America and get citizenship status for their children.

The fraud is just the least of the concerns. The bigger worry?

Cybersecurity. Cyber warfare. Counterintelligence and crimes of data theft.

In other words: These pregnant women from China may not simply be coming to America to steal America’s tax-paid entitlements.

They may have more nefarious ideas in mind — or, at the least, their Chinese governing leaders might.

Let’s take note of this headline, from just a couple days ago, from the Hill: “FBI director calls China most ‘concerning’ counterintelligence threat.”

And this one, from the Wall Street Journal: “China and Russia, Alined More Closely, Seen as Chief Security Threat to U.S.”

What’s the link to birth tourism, you say? Well, it’s not as if the players involved with bringing China’s pregnant women onto American soil are pro-America.

“Statements by the operators of these birthing houses show contempt for the United States, while they were luring clients with the power and prestige of U.S. citizenship for their children,” said U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna, on CNN.

And while the left may try to sell these poor pregnant women as simply trying to come to America to better their families, what’s to say — who’s to say — they aren’t also maintaining enough ties to their homeland that if the opportunity to show loyalty presents, they won’t take it? An opportunity that could present, say, while educating their children in U.S. schools, while employing their children in the U.S. government?

These pregnant women, after all, have extended families back in China — extended family members that are still living within the confines of their dictatorial government. And lest we forget, people who disappoint China’s government aren’t exactly safe.

“China disappearances show Beijing sets its own rules,” BBC reported in October in a story about the mysterious vanishing of two high-profile Chinese citizens whose activities were deemed criminal by the government.

Such headlines repeat elsewhere.

So the warning to America is two-fold — both short- and long-term.

Feds arrested 19 tied to birth tourism and charged them with “conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, international money laundering and identity theft,” the Department of Justice told CNN.

The fraud, the theft of tax dollars, the stealing of entitlements — those are all the short-term. Those are immediate.

“America’s way of life is not for sale,” said Joseph Macias, a special agent for Homeland Security, operating out of Los Angeles, in a statement to Fox News.

Great.

But let’s carry that message into the long-term.

Birth tourism isn’t just an offense to taxpayers. It leaves question marks in the air over the heads of these babies and women about their countries of loyalties. It places asterisks by their nationalities. And that means: It leaves a serious threat to America’s national security, the full weight of which may not even be realized until today’s babies become tomorrow’s adults.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.