Women who traveled to the United States to have their babies there

(Beijing) – The so-called maternity tourism business in the United States has slowed since a crackdown by U.S. government agencies – at least for the time being, say Chinese emigrants involved in the shady industry.

On March 3, agents from the U.S. homeland security and treasury departments and also from the Internal Revenue Service raided 20 apartments in Southern California where pregnant Chinese women, most of them from China, were living either before or after they had their baby.

U.S. media reports said the investigators had search warrants because authorities suspected visa fraud, tax evasion and money laundering. No arrests were made, but agents seized documents.

Investigators were targeting apartment complexes where women hoping to have "anchor babies" were living. Children born in the United States automatically become U.S. citizens, and once they are 21 years old these "anchors" can help relatives move to the country.

One person who emigrated from China and runs a maternity tourism business said the raids prompted nearly half of the operators he knows about to close their doors.

"Some might just call it quits because many live in the United States as a permanent resident and don't want to take a chance with the law," the man surnamed Ma said. "Others want to stay quiet for a while and then wait and see before deciding what to do."

Another person who moved to the United States from China and runs a maternity tourism business said he is having trouble getting clients, and many who paid deposits had cancelled their plans to have a child in the country. Police also warned the man, who gave his family name as Yu, that more raids were possible.

Daniel Deng, a lawyer in San Francisco, said law-enforcement agents have raided more than 50 "maternity hotels" housing 500 women.

Another lawyer, Jack Cheng, who practices in San Gabriel, California, said immigration officers have questioned some of the pregnant women, and if they were found to have given immigration authorities forged documents when they applied for visas, they could be barred from entering the United States for life.

Documents on property ownership and income are sometimes necessary to get U.S. tourist visas. Yu said 90 percent of his clients lied to immigration authorities to get their visas.

Ma said pregnant women paid from 100,000 to 500,000 yuan to have their babies in the United States. Most bills came to about 200,000 yuan, or US$ 32,400, which covered a two-month stay before delivery and another month afterward.

A business with five to six rooms can make a profit of about 50,000 yuan a month and margins for larger ones are even greater, Ma said.

Nearly 40,000 women headed to the United States to have their baby in 2014, said a website called A-amsm.com that provides ratings of the services offered by the "anchor baby" businesses. The number in 2004 was around 850.

A Chinese woman who had a baby in Los Angles said women usually enter the United States via Honolulu or Las Vegas because immigration screening there is less strict than in California.

(Rewritten by Li Rongde)