The Trump administration is suspending a visa-free travel program for some Chinese nationals visiting the Northern Mariana Islands, tightening a route Republicans have linked to “birth tourism.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the suspension will take effect on October 30 while officials review the program, according to a notice published in the Federal Register on October 27.
Birth tourism generally refers to foreign nationals traveling temporarily to the United States to give birth, with the aim of obtaining U.S. citizenship for their child before returning to their home country.
The Biden-era program, known as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Economic Vitality & Security Travel Authorization Program, or EVS-TAP, allows prescreened Chinese nationals to visit the U.S. territory without a visa for up to 14 days. Travelers using the program are limited to the Northern Mariana Islands and cannot travel to Guam, the U.S. mainland, or other parts of the country. The Northern Mariana Islands are a self-governing U.S. territory in the western Pacific.
DHS said in a Federal Register notice that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin determined there was “good cause” to suspend the program. Federal rules allow it to be suspended over concerns including national security, law enforcement and immigration enforcement. The department said it will review the program in consultation with the State and Interior departments.
Vicky Benavente, acting board chairwoman of the Marianas Visitors Authority, said she was “deeply concerned” by the suspension, noting that Chinese visitors accounted for more than 20 percent of arrivals in fiscal year 2026. “Suspending EVS-TAP without a viable replacement will be devastating,” Benavente said.
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Newsweek contacted DHS for comment via email.
In April, Republican Senators Mike Lee of Utah, Rick Scott of Florida, John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana urged the administration to scrap EVS-TAP, arguing that it encouraged birth tourism.
The suspension comes as the Trump administration and congressional Republicans push to crack down on birth tourism and narrow birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court on June 30 struck down Trump’s executive order seeking to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily in the country.
Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement shared with Newsweek, “The Supreme Court already decided this issue: Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution. No additional executive order can change the meaning of the Constitution. Any executive order that tries to rewrite birthright citizenship will meet the same fate as the last one."
House Republicans have also proposed restricting birthright citizenship for some future births in U.S. territories, while the administration has pursued other measures aimed at birth tourism and citizenship rules.
Trump stepped up those restrictions on August 6, signing an executive order directing the State and Homeland Security departments to prevent foreign nationals from using nonimmigrant visas for birth tourism. The order allows officials to consider denying or revoking visas and travel authorizations and taking action against people who facilitate such travel.
Lee celebrated the move by DHS, writing in a post on X, "America is not a nursery for the CCP to steal citizenship. Thank you, President Trump."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed on September 23 with a new policy restricting visas for people who engage in or facilitate birth tourism, including operators of commercial birth-tourism networks and visa brokers accused of helping applicants commit fraud.
The federal government already restricts birth tourism through visa rules introduced in 2020. Under those rules, consular officers can deny B-category visitor visas if they determine that giving birth in the United States to obtain U.S. citizenship for a child is the primary purpose of the trip. Pregnancy itself does not bar someone from traveling to the United States.
Mullin said in September that the administration was also considering restrictions on women in the later stages of pregnancy entering the United States as part of its birth-tourism crackdown. He said DHS was working with the Justice and Health and Human Services departments on possible rules.
The Migration Policy Institute, citing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, found that 9,576 babies were born in the United States and its territories in 2024 to mothers with foreign addresses—about 0.26 percent of the roughly 3.7 million births that year. MPI notes that the figure is only a proxy for birth tourism, while the most expansive estimate it cites puts the number of babies born through birth tourism at between 22,000 and 26,000 annually.
DHS created EVS-TAP in 2024 during the Biden administration, and it took effect on February 20, 2025. The department said the program was designed to balance Chinese tourism to the Northern Mariana Islands with national security, public safety, and immigration concerns.
Chinese nationals had previously been excluded from the broader Guam-CNMI Visa Waiver Program because of political and security concerns. The October 27 notice suspends EVS-TAP rather than permanently ending it. The suspension takes effect at 2 p.m. ET on October 30 and will apply to both new applicants and travelers who have already been approved.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and Emma Lee-Sang